Please click on the link and find out more information about the Man Booker Prize from the CBC website.
http://www.cbc.ca/books/2014/09/man-booker-2014-shortlist-announced.html
Click on the above link and take the Quiz!!!!!
The following information is from the CBC website.
Is this the year that Scottish novelist Ali Smith finally takes home the Man Booker Prize?The author of the critically acclaimed dual-narrative novel
How to be Both has made the 2014 shortlist, along with five other contenders for the £50,000 (nearly $88,000 CAD) English-language fiction prize for English, the prize organizers announced Tuesday morning. Smith's novels
Hotel World and
The Accidental were shortlisted for the prestigious award in 2001 and 2005 respectively, but neither won.
The complete shortlist is:
- Joshua Ferris for To Rise Again at a Decent Hour
- Richard Flanagan for The Narrow Road to the Deep North
- Karen Joy Fowler for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
- Howard Jacobson for J
- Neel Mukherjee for The Lives of Others
- Ali Smith for How to be Both
Ferris and Fowler have the distinction of being the first Americans to be named to the shortlist in the award's history. This year is the first time the Man Booker Prize has allowed submissions from writers outside of the Commonwealth countries, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe, as long as the works were published in English and available in the U.K. This significant break from history inspired debate among literary circles, with some welcoming the broadening of the rules, and others feeling the prize would lose some of its identity.
The longlist includes four American writers, including Richard Powers and Siri Hustvedt. British literary stars David Mitchell (who had made the shortlist twice before for different books) and David Nicholls are also on this year's longlist.
"We had a lengthy and intensive debate to whittle the list down to these six," said prize judge A.C. Grayling. "It is a strong, thought-provoking shortlist which we believe demonstrates the wonderful depth and range of contemporary fiction in English."
Throughout the award's four-decade history, several Canadians have made the shortlist and a handful have won, including Michael Ondaatje, Margaret Atwood and, last year's winner, Eleanor Catton.
Looking for information from a British Perspective? Click on the link from the Guardian and read the article written by
Alison Flood.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/09/man-booker-prize-2014-shortlist
Follow this article by Roslyn Sulcas from the New York Times.
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/man-booker-prize-shortlist-announced-2/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
This year's Man Booker Prize winner will be revealed on Tuesday, October 14.
The winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is...
14 October 2014
Richard Flanagan is tonight, Tuesday 14 October, announced as the winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, published by Chatto & Windus.
The Tasmanian-born author is the third Australian to win the coveted prize which, for the first time in its 46-year history, is now expanded to include entries from writers of all nationalities, writing originally in English and published in the UK. He joins an impressive literary canon of former winners including fellow Australians Thomas Kenneally (
Schindler’s Ark, 1982) and Peter Carey (
Oscar & Lucinda, 1988 and
The True History of the Kelly Gang, 2001).
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is the sixth novel from Richard Flanagan, who is considered by many to be one of Australia’s finest novelists. It centres upon the experiences of surgeon Dorrigo Evans in a Japanese POW camp on the now infamous Thailand-Burma railway. The
Financial Times calls it ‘elegantly wrought, measured and without an ounce of melodrama… nothing short of a masterpiece.’
Named after a famous Japanese book by the haiku poet Basho,
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is described by the 2014 judges as ‘a harrowing account of the cost of war to all who are caught up in it’. Questioning the meaning of heroism, the book explores what motivates acts of extreme cruelty and shows that perpetrators may be as much victims as those they abuse. Flanagan’s father, who died the day he finished
The Narrow Road to the Deep North, was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway.
Richard Flanagan was announced as the 2014 winner by AC Grayling, Chair of judges, at an awards dinner at London’s Guildhall, which was broadcast live on the BBC News Channel. Flanagan was presented with a trophy from HRH The Duchess of Cornwall and a £50,000 cheque from Emmanuel Roman, Chief Executive of Man Group. The investment management firm has sponsored the prize since 2002.
AC Grayling comments: ‘The two great themes from the origin of literature are love and war: this is a magnificent novel of love and war. Written in prose of extraordinary elegance and force, it bridges East and West, past and present, with a story of guilt and heroism.
‘This is the book that Richard Flanagan was born to write.’
In addition to his £50,000 prize and trophy, Flanagan also receives a designer bound edition of his book, and a further £2,500 for being shortlisted.
On winning the Man Booker Prize, an author can expect international recognition, not to mention a dramatic increase in book sales. Sales of Hilary Mantel’s winning novels,
Wolf Hall and
Bring Up the Bodies, have exceeded a million copies in their UK editions, published by Fourth Estate. Her novels have subsequently been adapted for stage and screen, with the highly acclaimed theatre productions of both novels arriving on Broadway in April 2015. Granta, publisher of Eleanor Catton’s 2013 winner,
The Luminaries, has sold 300,000 copies of the book in the UK and almost 500,000 worldwide.
AC Grayling, philosopher and author, was joined on the 2014 panel of judges by:
Jonathan Bate, Oxford Professor of English Literature and biographer;
Sarah Churchwell, UEA’s Professor of American Literature;
Daniel Glaser, neuroscientist and cultural commentator;
Alastair Niven, former Director of Literature at the British Council and at the Arts Council, and
Erica Wagner, former literary editor and writer.
