Booker Prize

Britain's Most Prestigious Award for Fiction

Feb 20, 2007 Sandy Mitchell

The Man Booker Prize is awarded each October for the best original novel written in English by a citizen of the British Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic or Ireland

In order to be considered a novel must have been originally published in England and cannot be self-published. The Booker Prize, established in 1968, carries a £ 50,000 cash award. Winners are selected by an advisory committee, which changes each year. Members of the committee include an author, two publishers, a literary agent, a bookseller, a librarian, and a chairperson appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation.

Among the recent Brooker Prize winners are:

  • 2006 - Kiran Desai - The Inheritance of Loss
  • 2005 - John Banville - The Sea
  • 2004 - Allan Hollinghurst - The Line of Beauty
  • 2003 - DBC Pierre - Vernon God Little
  • 2002 - Yann Martel - Life of Pi
  • 2001 - Peter Carey - True History of the Kelly Gang
  • 2000 - Margaret Atwood - The Blind Assassin
  • 1999 - J M Coetzee - Disgrace
  • 1998 - Ian McEwan - Amsterdam
  • 1997 - Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things
  • 1996 - Graham Swift - The Last Orders
  • 1995 - Pat Barker - The Ghost Road
  • 1994 - James Kelman - How Late it Was, How Late

Two people have won the Booker Prize twice: South African J.M. Coetzee (for Disgrace in 1999 and The Life and Times of Michael K in 1983) and Australian Peter Carey (for True History of the Kelly Gang in 2001 and Oscar and Lucinda in 1988).

The copyright of the article Booker Prize in British/UK Fiction is owned by Sandy Mitchell. Permission to republish Booker Prize in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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