First awarded in 1969, the Man Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious literary prizes in the world. The prize is open to authors of any nationality so long as the book is written in English.
As such you might expect each long list to be diverse, but with the Man Booker Longlist for 2016 announced and dominated by white faces we are once again shown how desperately we need more diversity in literature.
Of the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, which includes thirteen books this year, just three authors are people of colour, and even more disappointingly, all of them are based in North America.
The Booker has never been a champion of diversity, but last year six of the authors were people of colour, and it was starting to look as though we might be seeing a positive change. However, this year’s list looks more like 1969!
Negativity aside, here’s the list and the books nominated for the Man Booker Literary Prize 2016.
The Man Booker is a prestigious prize and you can expect every one of these longlisted books to hit the best sellers list!
Now the list will be whittled down to a shortlist of six books, and that list will be announced on Tuesday 13th September 2016 at a press conference at the London offices of the prize’s sponsor, the Man Group. Each of the shortlisted authors will receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their entered works.
Then on 25th October, from the shortlisted books a single winner will be announced in London’d Guildhall at a black-tie dinner, considered to be one of the highlights of the publishing year! For those who aren’t lucky enough to be buying a new suit or frock and going along, the ceremony will be broadcast on the BBC in the UK.
The Man Booker Book of the Year winner will receive a further £50,000 in prize money and the international recognition of winning one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world. Last year’s winner, A Brief History of Seven Killings has sold over 300,000 copies to date and has been translated into twenty different languages!
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