Booker Prize

British literary award
Alternative Titles: Booker McConnell Prize, Booker Prize for Fiction, Man Booker Prize

Booker Prize, in full Man Booker Prize, formerly Booker McConnell Prize, prestigious British award given annually to a full-length novel in English.

  • English author Howard Jacobson won the 2010 Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question, a comic novel about Jewish identity.
    Howard Jacobson with his Booker Prize-winning novel The Finkler Question, …
    Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

Booker McConnell, a multinational company, established the award in 1968 to provide a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France. Initially, only English-language writers from the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Commonwealth countries were eligible. In 2013, however, it was announced that the prize would be open to English-language writers worldwide from 2014. The prize was the subject of controversy on several occasions, and in 1984 Salman Rushdie, the winner of the prize in 1981 for his novel Midnight’s Children, described the judging committee as “Killjoyces” and “Anti-Prousts” after the committee chairman stated that he had not read the fiction of James Joyce and Marcel Proust and did not want to award the prize to writers like them. (Rushdie won the Booker of Bookers [1993] and the Best of the Booker [2008] prizes when they were given in celebration of the prize’s 25th and 40th anniversaries, respectively.) The award was administered by the Book Trust until 2002, when oversight passed to the Man Group PLC, an investment management firm.

Well-known recipients of the prize include V.S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, Iris Murdoch, J.M. Coetzee, A.S. Byatt, Kingsley Amis, Penelope Lively, Ben Okri, Michael Ondaatje, Ian McEwan, Peter Carey, Kiran Desai, and Hilary Mantel.

In 1992 the Booker Russian Novel Prize was set up to reward contemporary Russian authors, to stimulate wider knowledge of modern Russian fiction, and to encourage translation and publication of Russian fiction outside Russia. The Russian prize was disassociated from the other Bookers in 1999, after which sponsorship was provided by several Russian companies. The biennial Man Booker International Prize was established in 2005 as a lifetime achievement award. From 2016 it was awarded annually to the writer of a novel or short-story collection in English translation. The annual Man Asian Prize was established in 2007; the Man Group announced in 2012 that it was withdrawing its sponsorship of the prize.

Winners of the Booker Prize

Winners of the Booker Prize are provided in the table.

Booker Prize winners
year* novel author
1969 Something to Answer For P.H. Newby
1970 The Elected Member Bernice Rubens
1971 In a Free State V.S. Naipaul
1972 G. John Berger
1973 The Siege of Krishnapur J.G. Farrell
1974 Holiday Stanley Middleton
The Conservationist Nadine Gordimer
1975 Heat and Dust Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1976 Saville David Storey
1977 Staying On Paul Scott
1978 The Sea, the Sea Iris Murdoch
1979 Offshore Penelope Fitzgerald
1980 Rites of Passage William Golding
1981 Midnight’s Children Salman Rushdie
1982 Schindler’s Ark Thomas Keneally
1983 Life & Times of Michael K J.M. Coetzee
1984 Hotel du Lac Anita Brookner
1985 The Bone People Keri Hulme
1986 The Old Devils Kingsley Amis
1987 Moon Tiger Penelope Lively
1988 Oscar and Lucinda Peter Carey
1989 The Remains of the Day Kazuo Ishiguro
1990 Possession A.S. Byatt
1991 The Famished Road Ben Okri
1992 Sacred Hunger Barry Unsworth
The English Patient Michael Ondaatje
1993 Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha Roddy Doyle
1994 How Late It Was, How Late James Kelman
1995 The Ghost Road Pat Barker
1996 Last Orders Graham Swift
1997 The God of Small Things Arundhati Roy
1998 Amsterdam Ian McEwan
1999 Disgrace J.M. Coetzee
2000 The Blind Assassin Margaret Atwood
2001 True History of the Kelly Gang Peter Carey
2002 Life of Pi Yann Martel
2003 Vernon God Little D.B.C. Pierre
2004 The Line of Beauty Alan Hollinghurst
2005 The Sea John Banville
2006 The Inheritance of Loss Kiran Desai
2007 The Gathering Anne Enright
2008 The White Tiger Aravind Adiga
2009 Wolf Hall Hilary Mantel
2010 The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson
2011 The Sense of an Ending Julian Barnes
2012 Bring Up the Bodies Hilary Mantel
2013 The Luminaries Eleanor Catton
2014 The Narrow Road to the Deep North Richard Flanagan
2015 A Brief History of Seven Killings Marlon James
2016 The Sellout Paul Beatty
*In 1969 and 1970 the prize was awarded to a novel published in the year previous to that in which the prize was given. In 1971 the prize was awarded to a novel published that same year, between January and November. Because the rule change precluded eligibility for novels published in 1970, the one-off Lost Man Booker Prize was devised in 2010 to honour such a novel. The winner, decided by public vote, was Troubles by J.G. Farrell.

Winners of the Man Asian Prize

Winners of the Man Asian Prize are provided in the table.

Asian Literary Prize*
year author country of origin title of work
2007 Jiang Rong (pseudonym of Lü Jiamin) China Lanag tu teng (Wolf Totem)
2008 Miguel Syjuco Philippines Ilustrado
2009 Su Tong (pseudonym of Tong Zhonggui) China He an (The Boat to Redemption)
2010 Bi Feiyu China Yu mi (Three Sisters)
2011 Shin Kyung-Sook South Korea Ŏmmarŭl put’akhae
(Please Look After Mom)
2012 Tan Twan Eng Malaysia The Garden of Evening Mists
*The Man Asian Literary Prize became the Asian Literary Prize after the Man Group withdrew sponsorship in 2012.

Winners of the Man Booker International Prize

Winners of the Man Booker International Prize are provided in the table.

Man Booker International Prize
year author country of
origin
2005 Ismail Kadare Albania
2007 Chinua Achebe Nigeria
2009 Alice Munro Canada
2011 Philip Roth United States
2013 Lydia Davis United States
2015 László Krasznahorkai Hungary
2016 Han Kang South Korea

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British literary award
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