Man Booker Prize to open to authors from US, other countries from 2014

Organisers of the Man Booker Prize announced on Wednesday that from next year, the literary prize will be open to authors from the US, as well as around the world. [caption id=“attachment_1120623” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Lowlands is on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize this year. Image courtesy Wikipedia.[/caption] The award, which was founded in 1969, was previously open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the 54-nation Commonwealth of former British colonies. Now prize trustees are saying that from 2014, the prize will be open to all authors regardless of nationality, as long as their novels are written in English and published in Britain. The Huffington Post quoted Jonathan Taylor, chairman of the prize trustees, as saying that the expanded prize “will recognise, celebrate and embrace authors writing in English, whether from Chicago, Sheffield or Shanghai.” “We are embracing the freedom of English in all its vigor, its vitality, its versatility and its glory wherever it may be,” he said. Organisers also said that they had considered setting up a different prize for the US, but concluded that it might end up “jeopardising or diluting” the existing award. Writer and broadcaster Melvin Bragg told the Sunday Times that it would mean “the Booker will now lose its distinctiveness. It’s rather like a British company being taken over by some worldwide conglomerate.” Howard Jacobson, who won the prize with The Finkler Question in 2010  told The Telegraph it was the “wrong decision”. Jim Crace, nominated this year for Harvest, told The Independent: “If you open the Booker prize to all people writing in the English language it would be a fantastic overview of English language literature but it would lose a focus.” But Irish writer John Banville, who won the prize in 2005 for “The Sea,” told  the BBC it was an excellent idea. “But God help the rest of us,” he added, “because American fiction is very strong indeed.”