‘New writers to the fore’

Media response to Man Booker shortlist

7 September 2007

The announcement of this year’s Man Booker shortlist (6 September 2007) came shortly after the judging panel emerged from their meeting at Man Group plc in London.

The Guardian reported that the final cull had left off all four first-time novelists and that ‘after the massacre of entries from long-established writers when the longlist was announced, last night’s shortlist of six, from which the winner of the most respected of all fiction awards will be chosen, offered fewer surprises.’

The Guardian’s John Crace offered his help to anyone who hadn’t had the time to read the shortlisted titles yet, with his genius ‘digested shortlist’.

Many reporters were surprised to see Lloyd Jones’ Mister Pip installed by bookies as the favourite to win the prize, ahead of Ian McEwan’s On Chesil Beach, shortly after the shortlist announcement. Despite Jones being put ahead in the odds, The Times said,

‘It must be Ian McEwan’s year. Days after the film adaptation of his bestselling book Atonement opened to favourable reviews, his latest novel, On Chesil Beach, was shortlisted for the prestigious 2007 Man Booker Prize award.’

The Independent applauded that that the shortlist had pushed ‘new writers to the fore in eclectic blend of Booker Prize contenders’ and reported that ‘the thorny issues of international politics feature strongly on this year’s Man Booker shortlist, with stories of a Pakistani man disillusioned with the American dream, a boy living in the shadow of the Bhopal disaster and post-industrial Papua New Guinea vying for the UK’s most prestigious literary award.’

The Financial Times reported that the small, independent publishing houses didn’t survive the shortlist cull, saying:

‘The two tiny houses represented on the longlist, Tindal Street with Catherine O’Flynn’s What Was Lost and Myrmidon with the Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng were both unlucky in the final account.’

The Daily Telegraph questioned the exclusion of well-known names from both the longlist and shortlist this year. Ion Trewin, Administrator of the Man Booker Prizes, responded to their reporter saying:

’One of the joys of this prize is identifying talent for the future. It is a strong list and if we had six well-known names each year we would be criticised for not encouraging new talent.’

Metro (London) picked up on the fact that if McEwan does go on to win the Man Booker Prize next month, he will become one of only three authors to have won the prize twice (Peter Carey and J M Coetzee have both won the prize twice).

The winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2007 will be announced at an awards ceremony at Guildhall London on the 16 October 2007.

The Man Booker Prize Fiction at its finest