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Thursday 14 December 2017

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Man Booker Prize drops critic's favourite from the shortlist

Britain's most prestigious book award has been accused of lowering its literary standards after dropping a heavyweight favourite from the final shortlist for the prize.

Britain's most prestigious book award has been accused of lowering its literary standards after dropping a heavyweight favourite from the final shortlist for the prize.
Hollinghurst, 57, a previous winner of the award, failed to impress this year's judges Photo: REX

"The Stranger's Child" by Alan Hollinghurst had been widely hailed by literary critics as the finest book of the year and was the bookies tip to win the Man Booker prize.

But the novel, which was on the longlist, has not even made the final cut of six.

Hollinghurst, 57, a previous winner of the award, failed to impress this year's judges, headed by former MI5 chief Dame Stella Rimington, who admitted the key criteria was "readability".

His epic story, despite being descirbed as beautifully written, was thought to be too long and failed to deliver the promise of its earlier chapters.

However its failure to reach the final shortlist, along with another literary heavyweight, the Irish poet Sebastian Barry, has opened the prize up to suggestions of dumbing down.

One critic even said that it was a list of books designed to satisfy book clubs and film adaptors.

The successful finalists for the £50,000 prize are headed by The Sense of the Ending by Julian Barnes, who has never won the prize despite being nominated on three previous occasions.

He is joined by Carol Birch, a previous nominee, with her book Jamrach's Menagerie and two debut novelists, Stephen Kelman, 35, a former local government worker from Luton and AD MIller, the former Moscow Correspondent of the Economist.

Kelman's book Pigeon English is set on a Peckham council estate and has echoes of the Damilola Taylor murder.

Miller's story Snowdrops describes life in the Russian capital after the fall of the Iron Curtain.

The four British writers are joined by two Canadians - Patrick deWitt with The Sisters Brothers, a western, and Esi Edugyan with Half Blood Blues, set in Berlin just before the WW2.

But it was Hollinghurst's exclusion for his successor to the Booker-winning The Line of Beauty that raised the most eyebrows.

"It is a very disappointing shortlist," said author Philip Hensher, a former judge and nominee for the prize.

"I think people will look back at this year and see that they have made a big mistake. See it is as a strong year for fiction but a weak year for the prize.

"I really cannot see at all that these novels are better than Stranger's Child.

"It is impossible."

Hensher, whose own new book failed to even reach the long list this year, felt that there had been reaction against highbrow trophy books that sit half read on book shelves.

"I think there has been a deliberate move away from highbrow and literary fiction to more populist," he said.

"But there is a danger that the prize will lose its literary credentials if you go for more popular books.

"It is just baffling to me - a very strange decision."

Dame Stella denied that it was dumbing down but said it was about the books and not the reputation of the writer.

She said: "We all thought we wanted to find books that all over the country, all over the world, people would read and enjoy.

"We were looking for enjoyable books. I think they are very readable books.

"We wanted people to buy these books and read them. Not buy them and admire them."

Her fellow judge Chris Mullin, the politician and author, said: "Other people said to me when they heard I was in the judging panel, 'I hope you pick something readable this year'.

"That for me was such a big factor, it had to zip along."

He said the judges did not want to pick books that "stay on the shelves half read".

Judges said that Barnes's book appeared to be the "most obvious" work on the shortlist.

But it was an unexpected book, because it was "short, quiet" and at times was not only "surprising but actively shocking".

The winner will be announced on October 18.

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