Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize

In which field is the Man Booker Prize given?

Awarded every year the Man Booker Prize promotes the finest in fiction by rewarding the very best book of the year. The prize is the world’s most important literary award and has the power to transform the fortunes of authors and publishers.

The prize, which celebrated its 40th anniversary in 2008 after launching in 1969, aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel of the year written by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. To maintain the consistent excellence of the Man Booker Prize, judges are chosen from a wide range of disciplines, including critics, writers and academics, but also poets, politicians and actors, all with a passion for quality fiction.

What amount is awarded to the winner?

The winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000 and, like all the shortlisted authors, a cheque for £2,500 and a designer bound copy of their book. Fulfilling one of the objectives of the prize - to encourage the widest possible readership for the best in literary fiction - the winner and the shortlisted authors now enjoy a dramatic increase in book sales worldwide.

The winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011 was Julian Barnes’s The Sense of an Ending and the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2012 is Hilary Mantel for Bring up the Bodies.

What is The Man Booker International Prize?

Worth £60,000, the prize is awarded every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in English language. The winner is chosen solely at the discretion of the judging panel and there are no submissions from publishers.

Launched in 2005, the Man Booker International Prize has already established itself as a major player in the literary world and has literary excellence as its sole focus.

How is it different from the Man Booker Prize?

The Man Booker International Prize is significantly different from the annual Man Booker Prize for Fiction in that it highlights one writer’s overall contribution to fiction on the world stage. In seeking out literary excellence, the judges consider a writer’s body of work rather than a single novel. Writers from across the globe are eligible for the bi-annual prize, provided their work is available in English.

Previous winners include Albanian novelist and poet Ismail Kadare in 2005, Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe in 2007, Alice Munro in 2009 and Philip Roth in 2011.