The presentation of the Booker Prize is one of the most important annual events in the literary world. Since 1969, it has been awarded to the best English-language works from the countries of the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe. However, this rule existed until 2013.
In 2014, the award for the first time abandoned geography. For one of the most prestigious awards in the world, in fact, an entire era has ended. Therefore, it is quite possible to summarize the "results" of this era, before the 2014 Booker Prize erased all national signs.
History
Booker Prize in Literature was organized and first presented in 1969. The initiator and author of the award idea was an English businessman and philanthropist Sir Michael Harris Kane.
His corporation, Booker Group, is a leading player in the UK services industry, earning millions of pounds. She became the sponsor of the literary award, which was named in her honor.
The first prize, in addition to prestige, carried an amount of five thousand pounds. In the future, monetary rewards went up - ten, fifteen and twenty thousand.
In 2002, another giant business joined the sponsorship of the Booker Prize, namely Man Groop (financial services). This strengthened her prestige and made it possible to significantly increase the amount of money presented - up to fifty thousand feet. Since then, the official title of the award is The Man Booker Prize.
As mentioned above, since 2014, the event goes beyond the borders of the former colonies of Britain and is open to writers of any citizenship. One condition - the book should have been published at least once in English.
Winner determination
To find among the multifaceted and versatile modern literature something unambiguously the best, definitely quite difficult. Booker Award Process divided into several stages.
The first includes a meeting of a committee of literary critics, publishers, agents, and librarians; Representatives of both award-sponsoring companies are also required. These people are approved by a jury of five people (also prominent figures in the literary sphere) and a list of books, for which a maximum of one hundred novels.
Within a month, the jury compiles the so-called “long list” (twenty-five works), and then the “short list” (six). Of the six best novels, the future winners of the Booker Prize in Literature are also selected.
Of course, getting into the number of the best in both sheets is already prestigious and says a lot about the quality of the author's work.
First owner
For the first time, the Booker Prize was awarded to Percy Howard Newby, a teacher from Cairo.
His novel “We'll have to answer for this” tells about a Briton who came to Egypt on personal matters by the name of Townrow.
However, he fell into the country of the pyramids at the wrong time, namely during the Suez crisis, when England and France could not forgive Egypt the nationalization of the Suez Canal and unleashed a war. Townrow is faced with many problems, the hatred of local residents. As an Englishman, he gets paid for all the politics of the former British Empire.
It is the fault of the common man in the colonial past of his country that is the main issue of the novel. For its relevance and the sharp syllable that has permeated the book, Newby was honored with an award.
J. M. Coetzee
In 1999, South African linguist and writer John Maxwell Coetzee became the first person to receive such a prestigious award twice. Before him, the Booker Prize laureates were never honored to be awarded twice, but often fell into long or short lists in different years.
Kutzee received the first prize in 1983, when his highly-social novel, The Life and Times of Michael K., was published. In it, a young man with a sick mother tries to find shelter from hostilities on a farm, having escaped from Cape Town. The main theme of history is the life of a person in society, his responsibility to him, as well as the responsibility of society to the individual. Coetzee asks the question of where the personal space of a person’s soul ends and his “social significance” begins. It goes without saying that the theme of the character’s clash with the general globalization of the world could not be overlooked by the Booker Prize committee; especially at the end of the 20th century.
The second award the South African writer earned for the novel "dishonor." Later, the work was filmed with John Malkovich in the title role. The novel reveals to us the story of a professor expelled from a university for having sex with a “colored” student who is leaving for his daughter on a farm. After many years of government policy, the separation of “white” and “black” South Africa is going through difficult times. The main character will have to find out - are there so many differences between the indigenous people and the descendants of the colonists?
A hot topic, literally standing on a knife’s edge, rushed from one extreme to another, inviting the reader to see all the problems of racial relationships in South Africa: from hatred towards all “niggas” to the full realization that all people, despite their skin color, are equal.
In 2003, Coetzee also received the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Peter Carrie
The second person whom the Booker Prize visited twice was Australian Peter Carrie. He was able to conquer it for the second time in 2002.
He received his first award in 1988 for the novel Oscar and Lucinda, which tells of a crazy bet between a priest and the owner of a glass factory. After all, if Oscar manages to translate intact and establish a glass church in Australia, then he will receive all the state of Lucinda. What for? In order to give it in favor of the poor and destitute or to lower them at the card table? In 1997, the novel was filmed.
The next time Carrie gets on the Booker Prize list thanks to his novel The True Story of Kelly's Gang, in which he tries to convey to the general reader the story of the ambiguous character of Australian folklore. After all, historians still argue - who was the legendary Ned Kelly, who became famous as a "noble robber" and the owner of stylish leather armor - a simple killer or a fighter against the British crown? In his novel, Carrie tries to give an answer and comes to a compromise version: Ned Kelly was both that and that. Starting as a simple gangster, he increasingly noticed the suffering of the Australians under the oppression of Her Majesty's police, until, at last, he declared personal war on the British Empire.
Eleanor Cutton
The 2013 Booker Prize was awarded to New Zealand writer Eleanor Cutton. It is noteworthy that she set two records related to this award at once.
First, Catton became the youngest of all prize winners. At the time of delivery, she was “only” twenty-eight. Secondly, her novel "The Light" at the moment remains the most voluminous work (eight hundred and thirty-two pages) that has received this award.
The protagonist, Walter Moody, arrives in New Zealand during the reign of British Queen Victoria. It was then that the gold rush began, and the small island was remembered by the seekers of easy money. However, Walter will not have to take up gold mines at all - he is drawn into clarifying the circumstances of a series of mysterious and mystical murders that frightened all New Zealand residents.
The main topic for Catton’s creative search was the question of excitement, thirst for profit and need for money. The writer seems to slyly wink at us from the pages of the book, where there are people who are ready for anything for wealth, success - any sins are not a crime for them if this leads them to their cherished goal. “Well, has much changed here?” - as if asking Eleanor Cutton.
Richard Flanagan
“The narrow road to the far north” was written by the author Richard Flanagan for twelve years, and as a result, the 2014 Booker Prize went to him.
The novel tells of a Japanese prisoner of war camp during World War II, where prisoners were forced to build one of the most "blood-hungry" railways from Thailand to Burma. The creation of this path claimed the lives of hundreds of prisoners, not all returned home.
The book first plunges us into the terrible world of camp horror, and then gives us the opportunity to see what happened to those who survived; how they all the same stop their way in this world very soon - most often by suicide. How warders hide from justice.
However, in all this, Flanagan is trying to find at least something, if not good, that makes him live. This book is about camaraderie, about sympathy and grief bringing people together.
Branches
Thanks to the efforts of Michael Harris Kane, the Booker Prize extended to other countries. Only three so-called “branches” were released as a result of the work of Booker Groop. The International Booker Prize has been awarded once every two years since 2005. Since 2007, the Asian Booker Prize has also appeared.
And since 1992, there has also been a “Russian Booker,” as Kane’s desire to help a country once filled with great writers.
The question of the relevance of these branches and their future activities after changing the conditions for the winners remains open.
Summary
It is difficult to imagine what the consequences will be of a change in the conditions for receiving the award, and what the Booker Prize will turn into. Winners have always been closely and invariably connected with Britain, with its subject and current issues. The history of the relationship of the British Empire with the colonies also rose more than once among them.
However, change is always for the better. It features the 2014 Booker Prize - winners all the same, despite the setting, they are talking about the same thing. About the importance of human relations, that in any case, you must remain a person. And preferably, a person with high moral qualities. This is what real literature should show, regardless of the country in which it was born.