The Lost Man Booker Prize – Novels from 1970 finally get their day.
Posted on 05. Feb, 2010 by Rachael in Books
This year we have two Man Booker Prizes to look forward to – the annual Man Booker Prize and the recently announced one-off Lost Man Booker Prize.
In 1971 it was decided that the prize should only be awarded to novels published in the current year and not retrospectively. At the same time, the date of the award ceremony was moved from April to November. Due to this some fantastic books written in 1970 missed out on the opportunity to be considered for this prestigious prize.
This is the third “celebratory” Man Booker Prize award – the other two were the Booker of Bookers in 1993 (25th anniversary) and the Best of the Booker to mark the 40th anniversary. Both of these awards were won by Salman Rushdie for his book Midnight’s Children.
This award came about after some investigation by Peter Staus (Booker Prize Foundation archivist). He said, “I noticed that when Robertson Davies’s Fifth Business was first published it carried encomiums from Saul Bellow and John Fowles both of whom judged the 1971 Booker Prize. However judges for 1971 said it had not been considered or submitted. This led to an investigation which concluded that a year had been excluded. I am delighted that, even in a Darwinian way, this year, with so many extraordinary novels, can now be covered by the Man Booker Prize.”
Here is the longlist of the 22 books chosen to be considered for this award:
H.E.Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
Christy Brown, Down All The Days
Len Deighton, Bomber
J.G.Farrell, Troubles
Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
Susan Hill, I’m The King Of The Castle
Francis King, A Domestic Animal
Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
Patrick O’Brian, Master and Commander
Joe Orton, Head To Toe
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
Muriel Spark, The Driver’s Seat
Patrick White, The Vivisector
40 years on it is the task ofthree judges, all born around 1970, to select just 6 for the shortlist. They are Tobias Hill (poet and novelist), Rachel Cooke (critic and journalist) and Katie Derham (ITN newsreader).
I think judging for any of these awards must be hard, but this task seems particularly difficult given the fact that it would be impossible not to let hindsight cloud your judgement. Many of these books have stood the test of time and many of the writers, then possibly just starting out, are now distinguished and celebrated world-wide with huge fan bases. Several of these authors went on to be shortlisted for the prize for their future work, some won the prize and others even went on to judge prize. Hmmm…the words MINE and FIELD are buzzing around my head.
The shortlist will be announced at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival at a special event on 25th March. I will let you know which of the above make it.
Finally, a little quote: “I remain bitterly disappointed no one tried to bribe me.” Tibor Fischer, Man Booker Judge 2004
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