Kiran Desai phot call at the Man Booker Awards 2007

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A chance to get to know the prize in more detail

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Chinua Achebe acceptance speech

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Dame Stella Rimington / Julian Barnes - Man Booker Prize 2011 2011.11.19

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 was won by Julian Barnes for The Sense of an Ending, published by Jonathon Cape. His award was presented by Dame Stella Rimington. 9.40pm October 18 2011

Man Booker Prize Press Conference, 18 October 2011 2011.10.21

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2011 was won by Julian Barnes for The Sense of an Ending, published by Jonathon Cape. This press conference features Barnes, Dame Stella Rimington, the chair of the judges, and Ion Trewin, the Literary Director of the Booker Prize Foundation.

Man Booker Prize, Library Event, 11th October 2011 2011.10.12

On 11 October, the Man Booker Prize hosted a one-off event to show its support for UK libraries at the British Library. The event was chaired by Tony Durcan OBE, Director of Culture, Libraries & Lifelong Learning at Newcastle City Council, and featured three of this year’s shortlisted authors - Carol Birch, Stephen Kelman and A.D. Miller.

Over 200 librarians and library groups from across the UK travelled to London for a chance to hear the shortlisted authors speak about the part libraries had played in their lives, as well as the opportunity to ask the authors about their shortlisted novels. Many of the library groups had travelled some distance to be there, as far flung as Edinburgh, Swansea, Warwickshire, Coventry. There were also guests from the groups shadowing the prize this year - from Redbridge, Calderdale, Swansea, Wandsworth and Knowsley.

Following short introductions from Frances Brindle (British Library) and Jonathan Taylor (Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation), Chair Tony Durcan kicked off the event on a positive note, saying ‎4,100 public libraries and 12 million active library readers is not a library service in crisis.

Stephen Kelman talked about how the local library had been a source of ‘available culture’ when he was growing up on a council estate. He said he had decided to become a writer at six years old, an ambition which was inspired by his parents and by his Headteacher, who used to pull him out of class to read Wuthering Heights to her.

Carol Birch said that she had almost taken libraries for granted - her parents used to take her once a week when she was younger and that joining a library when you moved house just seemed as natural registering with a doctor and dentist.

A.D. Miller spoke of how libraries had had different roles for him throughout his life: from his early addiction to Agatha Christie’s novels, to his late teens when - with long hair and a Byronic image (of himself) - he would take out Bronte novels from the local library and flirt with girls. He researched his first book, the non-fiction title The Earl of Petticoat Lane, largely in libraries and now that he has young children he’s found himself working through the back catalogues of the Mog the Cat books from his local library.

In addition, two of the shortlisted authors who were unable to take part sent messages of support.

Quote from Julian Barnes

"Like most writers of my generation, I grew up with the weekly exchange of library books, and took their pleasures and treasures for granted. The cost of our free public library system is small, its value immense. To diminish and dismantle it would be a kind of national self-mutilation, as stupid as it would be wicked."

Quote from Esi Edugyan

"Libraries have stood at the centre of every community I’ve lived in. I’ve moved around a lot as an adult, and libraries remain the hub, the fixed anchor, the thing I hold to. As a child I lived for the library, that wonderful and mysterious space my father took us to each Saturday, where we were free to dream of our very best selves. Libraries have been great sources of consolation for me, places where I could find a community of people utterly different from me and yet fundamentally the same. And that I suppose is what libraries mean to me: a place where differences meet up with similarities, and people can encounter their possible lives between the covers of a book."

Man Booker International Prize 2011 Winner Philip Roth reading from Nemesis 2011.06.28

Philip Roth, winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2011, reading from his 2010 book Nemesis.

Man Booker International Prize 2011 Winner Philip Roth interviewed by Benjamin Taylor, New York, May 2011 2011.06.20

Man Booker International Prize 2011 Winner Philip Roth interviewed by Benjamin Taylor, New York, May 2011

Philip Roth - Man Booker International Prize 2011 Winner 2011.05.18

Philip Roth is today announced as the winner of the fourth Man Booker International Prize at a press conference at the Sydney Opera House. Roth was chosen from a list of 13 eminent contenders.

The Man Booker International Prize, worth £60,000, is awarded for an achievement in fiction on the world stage. It is presented once every two years to a living author for a body of work published either originally in English or widely available in translation in the English language. It has previously been awarded to Ismail Kadaré in 2005, Chinua Achebe in 2007 and Alice Munro in 2009.

Philip Roth is a literary giant and one of the world’s most prolific, celebrated - and controversial - writers. Born in March 1933 in New Jersey, Roth is best known for his 1969 novel Portnoy’s Complaint, and for his late-1990s trilogy comprising the Pulitzer Prize-winning American Pastoral (1997),
I Married a Communist (1998), and The Human Stain (2000).

Rick Gekoski, Chair of the judging panel, commented today:

"For more than 50 years Philip Roth’s books have stimulated, provoked
and amused an enormous, and still expanding, audience. His imagination has not only recast our idea of Jewish identity, it has also reanimated fiction, and not just American fiction, generally.

"His career is remarkable in that he starts at such a high level, and keeps getting better. In his 50s and 60s, when most novelists are in decline, he wrote a string of novels of the highest, enduring quality. Indeed, his most recent, Nemesis (2010), is as fresh, memorable, and alive with feeling as anything he has written. His is an astonishing achievement."

Philip Roth comments:
"I would like to thank the judges of the Man Booker Prize for awarding me this esteemed prize. One of the particular pleasures I’ve had as a writer is to have my work read internationally despite all the heartaches of translation that that entails. I hope the prize will bring me to the attention of readers around the world who are not familiar with my work. This is a great honour and I’m delighted to receive it."

The judging panel for the Man Booker International Prize 2011 consists of writer, academic and rare-book dealer Dr Rick Gekoski (Chair), publisher, writer and critic Carmen Callil, and award-winning novelist Justin Cartwright.

Roth is announced winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 from Sydney during the Sydney Writers’ Festival. A festival event on 19 May will feature an exclusive filmed interview with Roth by novelist and critic Benjamin Taylor. The chair of the judges, Rick Gekoski, will discuss the judging process which saw much passionate debate over different candidates and how the winner was eventually decided.

Roth’s award will be celebrated at a formal dinner in London on 28 June 2011.

Panel Discussion with judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 part 4 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Panel Discussion following the announcement of the List of Finalists’ 2011. Part 4 of 4

Panel Discussion with judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 part 3 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Panel Discussion following the announcement of the List of Finalists’ 2011. Part 3 of 4

Panel Discussion with judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 part 2 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Panel Discussion following the announcement of the List of Finalists’ 2011. Part 2 of 4

Panel Discussion with judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 part 1 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Panel Discussion following the announcement of the List of Finalists’ 2011. Part 1 of 4

Man Booker International Prize Press Conference announcing the 2011 List of Finalists’ part 2 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Press Conference announcing the List of Finalists’ 2011. Part 2 of 2

Man Booker International Prize Press Conference to announce List of Finalists’ 2011 part 1 2011.04.01

Watch the judges of the Man Booker International Prize 2011 at the Press Conference announcing the 2011 List of Finalists’. Part 1 of 2

Short film looking at Howard Jacobson’s winning novel The Finkler Question 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Short film looking at Tom McCarthy’s shortlisted novel C 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Short film looking at Andrea Levy’s shortlisted novel The Long Song 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Short film looking at Peter Carey’s shortlisted novel Parrot and Olivier in America 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Short film looking at Emma Donoghue’s shortlisted novel, Room 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Short film looking at Damon Galgut’s shortlisted novel, In a Strange Room 2011.02.10

Created by the BBC for the 2010 prize

Howard Jacobson’s acceptance speech, after winning the Man Booker Prize 2010 2010.10.21

Watch the 2010 winner’s acceptance speech

Chair Judge, Andrew Motion’s speech announcing the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2010 2010.10.21

Watch Andrew Motion discuss the judging process and how they came to choose The Finkler Question as the 2010 Man Booker Prize winner