(From Publishing Perspectives. Link to the complete article given below)
‘Slavery, ecology, missing persons, inner-city violence, young love, prisons, trauma, and race’ all are said to figure into the Man Booker Prize for Fiction longlist, as the award starts its second 50 years of competition.
Just two weeks after being handed the “Golden Man Booker” award for The English Patient, Canadian Michael Ondaatje is on the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2018 longlist, announced today (July 24) in London. Ondaatje’s Warlight is in contention with 12 other longlisted titles by American, British, Irish, and Canadian authors.
The best-recognized and most-honored literary fiction prize in the English language, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction—not to be confused with the translation-focused Man Booker International Award—is entering its 51st year with this “Man Booker dozen” longlist of 13 titles.
The prize confers a purse of £50,000 (US$65,606). The shortlist of six titles is to be announced on September 20, with the winners’ announcement scheduled for a ceremony at Guildhall on October 16.
This year’s list has several distinctive elements, many involving the number four:
- Four titles are debut novels: The Long Take, The Water Cure, In Our Mad and Furious City, and Everything Under
- Four authors are younger than 30: Sally Rooney and Daisy Johnson are the youngest, both of them 27
- Four independent publishers are on the list: Faber & Faber has two titles, while Granta and Serpent’s Tale have one each
- Four nations are represented, with six writers from the UK, three from the USA, two from Ireland, and two from Canada
- One work, that of American author Nick Drnaso, is the prize program’s first nominated grahpic novel
And of key interest in the industry, the effect of a Man Booker win can be lucrative, organizers say, using last year’s winner as the example.
