The Man Booker Prize, apparently widely considered the leading English-language novel prize, has lots of objectionable/dubious eligibility requirements; my personal least-favorite, as you know, is the limits on submissions (how, and how many, starting or ending with the number of titles that can be submitted by any one publisher), but the one that gets the most attention is that the prize is notoriously limited to authors who are citizens "of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland or Zimbabwe".
As this convenient map shows, the Commonwealth covers a lot of territory -- fifty-four countries, including ... Mozambique -- but leaves out at least one place where a lot of English-language novels are produced: the United States. The exclusion of US-authored book has widely been a knock on the Man Booker's credibility (even as a few dual citizens have at least half-represented the US on the prize's long- and short-lists over the years); the fact that this year's shortlisted authors seem to come from practically anywhere but the UK of course also sends a loud and clear message .....
It's perhaps no coincidence that 2014 will see the inaugural The Folio Prize, which is pointedly: "open to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK". Clearly, the Man Booker committee saw the writing on the wall (and in the pages) and is afraid of being left behind: as now reported by Richard Brooks in the Sunday Times (here, but gated; see it also here, at The Australian), they've now decided: 'Man Booker literary prize to allow US entries'.
Apparently:
In this global age, where national allegiance and identity is much more ... fluid (as Brooks notes: "Four of this year's six short-listed authors, who were announced last week, live and work in the United States") this all might not be that upsetting; still, this is a change that will ruffle more than a few feathers (and will definitely impact, above all, British writers).
For what it's worth, I think the Man Booker, like the Folio Prize, is on the right track: if you're looking for the best book, inclusiveness is better than exclusiveness -- so the awards that I think will be most hurt by this are actually the two strictly American ones, the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, both limited (in the fiction category) to American citizens. Since the Man Booker will now automatically consider many of the books eligible for these (as long as they are also published in the UK -- admittedly not a given, even for some recent NBA and Pulitzer finalists) and offer them much stiffer competition it comes out looking as the much more impressive prize.
Anyway, this news will be the talk of the literary pages (in the UK, at least) in the coming days, and that should be fun to follow.
As this convenient map shows, the Commonwealth covers a lot of territory -- fifty-four countries, including ... Mozambique -- but leaves out at least one place where a lot of English-language novels are produced: the United States. The exclusion of US-authored book has widely been a knock on the Man Booker's credibility (even as a few dual citizens have at least half-represented the US on the prize's long- and short-lists over the years); the fact that this year's shortlisted authors seem to come from practically anywhere but the UK of course also sends a loud and clear message .....
It's perhaps no coincidence that 2014 will see the inaugural The Folio Prize, which is pointedly: "open to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK". Clearly, the Man Booker committee saw the writing on the wall (and in the pages) and is afraid of being left behind: as now reported by Richard Brooks in the Sunday Times (here, but gated; see it also here, at The Australian), they've now decided: 'Man Booker literary prize to allow US entries'.
Apparently:
The organisers increasingly believe that excluding writers from America is anachronistic. The Booker committee believes US writers must be allowed to compete to ensure the award's global reputation.It'll be interesting to see what exactly the rules change is -- will they just expand the eligibility requirement by the one nation (opening it 'to citizens of the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland, Zimbabwe, or the US') or will they go the full-Folio route (opening it, too, 'to all works of fiction written in English and published in the UK') ? (Friendly advice: the latter is the far better and neater solution, even if it does open them up to considering that occasional written-by-a-Latvian-but-in-English novel; the 'published in the UK' requirement should keep that from getting out of hand.) Either way, it will put intense pressure on their two-book-per-publisher-submission limit -- something they'll be loath to loosen -- and make competition for the limited submission quota a whole lot tougher. (Titles can be called in, but judges will also want to limit the total number of books they want to (or are willing to) consider, and while the eligible US titles have to be published in the UK (i.e. it's a much smaller pool than what's published in the US) those titles are going to take places -- possibly very, very many places -- that otherwise would have gone to UK or Commonwealth authors.)
In this global age, where national allegiance and identity is much more ... fluid (as Brooks notes: "Four of this year's six short-listed authors, who were announced last week, live and work in the United States") this all might not be that upsetting; still, this is a change that will ruffle more than a few feathers (and will definitely impact, above all, British writers).
For what it's worth, I think the Man Booker, like the Folio Prize, is on the right track: if you're looking for the best book, inclusiveness is better than exclusiveness -- so the awards that I think will be most hurt by this are actually the two strictly American ones, the Pulitzer and the National Book Award, both limited (in the fiction category) to American citizens. Since the Man Booker will now automatically consider many of the books eligible for these (as long as they are also published in the UK -- admittedly not a given, even for some recent NBA and Pulitzer finalists) and offer them much stiffer competition it comes out looking as the much more impressive prize.
Anyway, this news will be the talk of the literary pages (in the UK, at least) in the coming days, and that should be fun to follow.