The Booker Prize | |
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Awarded for | Best work of sustained fiction of the year, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland |
Location | Somerset House, Strand, London, England |
Country | United Kingdom ![]() |
Presented by |
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Reward(s) | £50,000 |
First awarded | 1969 |
Website | www |
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost.[1] When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.[2][3]
A five-person panel consisting of authors, publishers and journalists, as well as politicians, actors, artists and musicians,[4] is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation each year to choose the winning book.[5][6] As of 2024, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation is Gaby Wood.[7][8][9]
A high-profile literary award in British culture, the Booker Prize is greeted with anticipation and fanfare around the world.[10] Literary critics have noted that it is a mark of distinction for authors to be selected for inclusion in the shortlist or to be nominated for the "longlist".[1]
A sister prize, the International Booker Prize, is awarded for a work of fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Unlike the Booker Prize, short story collections are eligible for the International Booker Prize. The £50,000 prize money is split evenly between the author and translator of the winning novel.[11]
judges2014
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).In America, literary prizes are greeted with the same enthusiasm as a low Steelers draft choice. Not so in the British Isles, where the $98,000 Man Booker Fiction Prize can even push Amy Winehouse off the front page – at least for a day. The atmosphere around the award approaches sports-championship proportions, with London bookies posting the ever-changing odds on the nominees. Then, in October when the winner is announced live on the BBC TV evening news, somebody always gets ticked off.