Booker Archive reveals historical debates
Peter Straus lifts the lid on the Booker Archive
Peter Straus, Booker Honorary Archivist
The Booker Archive held at Oxford Brookes University is a treasure trove of amazing facts and nuggets of information which afford invaluable light on the history of the greatest international contemporary literature prize. The contents include detailed inventory and information as to how the Booker Prize came about; how the committee set the tone of the prize and kept to it through thick and thin – and there was no reason in the early years of the prize, in the 1970s, why it should have a god given right to perpetuity.
There are four main areas of interest documented.
First of all there are the Booker plc prize archives. These show how the judges were picked and in some cases how those judges picked the books they wanted to win. It also documents how reactions were often completely different to the same book. The second and third areas are the archives from the Book Trust and Colman Getty respectively. With the final set of documents being those of Martyn Goff himself, the eminence grise behind the Booker Prize and a man who almost single-handedly kept it running so well and smoothly.
There is also a collection of extraordinary pictures which provides both a lighter and a different cultural insight. There is a photo of authors in the early years holding their exotic trophy. (The trophy was abandoned after a few years). Alongside this collection of pictures there are audio-visual collections, newspaper and promotional cuttings.
In a world where we are encouraged to preserve a paper-less office, and where emails have replaced the old-fashioned letter writing, this archive is a memorial to an earlier age where information such as this is crucial for an understanding of the literary culture of the time.
We can see that in the early years a desperation to emulate the then literary award that sold books, the Prix Goncourt, resulted in a different kind of spin about the prize and about the books selected. The idea of giving large amounts of money – unlike the Goncourt – was potentially both dangerous and profligate. Early on in the prize’s genesis, controversy dominated. In a landmark year, 1971, at almost every step of the way, from preconception to prize-giving and beyond debates and disputes occurred. At first the decision was made to accept books published between September and December 1971. The judges could also call in books published before (from January 1971 on) but officially only those books published from September to December could be submitted. This caused a huge outcry amongst the publishers and several boycotted the award. Then one of the judges, the celebrated Malcolm Muggeridge, resigned in July saying that he was ‘out of sympathy’ with many of the novels submitted and felt he had to withdraw his services. The Sun ran a half page story on it. Into the breach within two weeks came Philip Toynbee, a well-read and serious critic. He had to be as the panel included John Fowles and Saul Bellow. One of the books they discussed was V. S. Naipaul’s In a Free State: after prolonged discussion it was decided this was a novel and not a collection of short stories. After further heated discussions and long letters and a vote count between judges to see whether it was a novel, with the votes going three-two. You will have to look into the archive to find out who voted for what! Even after the announcement, one of the judges was determined to try and pull the award and have a recount! You can also find out what Saul Bellow’s choice was for the award. This same year was it mooted that the shortlisted authors should get paid too. This did come about but not for many years. As one trawls through the archive, one also finds some seasoned regular myths being put out to dry! For instance, the book battle that was meant to have heralded in huge book sales as well as made the Booker prize as big as it can be was the advent of television and the excitement that surrounded it. It was the battle between Anthony Burgess and William Golding. Burgess was meant to be awaiting news via the telephone of whether he had won so he could go to the dinner or go home. He was informed and supposedly went home. But in the archive one finds a postcard from Anthony Burgess saying he was unable to attend the dinner because of prior engagements. Equally in the archive one finds out that it could not be a battle between the two heavyweights, as the runner up was Anita Desai’s Clear Light of Day. This is in evidence in the chair David Daiches’s speech.
Perhaps as a form of cultural insight the most rewarding aspect is to discover what books constituted a longlist before the actual publication of the longlist. One can see over the years how several authors consistently wrote novels of a standard that made them constant candidates for the longlist. There was also a debate about genre and an intent especially by one judge, to put a crime novel on the list in 1992 (they ultimately did not, though a novel by Michael Dibdin came very close). Sometimes a front runner in the longlist stakes did not even make the shortlist. One Nobel Laureate had his book submitted and selected as one of the six for the Booker but then he informed the prize that he thought it was for younger readers. Another author had his posthumous unfinished novel push past many titles that had been written from start to finish.
The power of the Booker has been long recognised, and the extraordinary minutes of the committee meeting document sales figures of the various years and the reactions to those figures. Often the publisher could not keep up with the demand created by the publicity surrounding the prize.
The prescience of the prize is also very much in evidence if one looks at the history. In four cases a Booker Prize winner has gone on to be a Nobel Laureate – William Golding; Nadine Gordimer; J.M. Coetzee and V.S.Naipaul. The power of the prize is amazing and continues to surprise people both those in the trade and those outside.
For all enquiries about the Booker Archive at Oxford Brookes University please contact Chris Fowler, subject librarian on cbfowler@brookes.ac.uk
