The Man Booker Prize
The Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969. It has been sponsored by Man Group plc since 2002, when it was renamed the Man Booker Prize. The Prize was set up by a company called Booker, who were at the time one of Britain's largest cash and carry companies and owners of the Budgens supermarket chain. (At around the same time, they also acquired the rights to the back catalogue of Ian Fleming.)
To be eligible, a novel must be of full length (although there seems to be little consensus about what this constitutes), written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland and published in the United Kingdom for the first time in the year of the prize. The novel must be an original work in English (not a translation) and must not be self-published. Each imprint at a publishing house may submit two titles; in addition to these, any previous winner or any author shortlisted in the previous five years gains automatic entry. Judges may also call in other books that they feel should be considered. Each judge reads every entry, usually around 130 books.
The Man Booker judges change each year and are selected from critics, writers, academics and public figures. They announce a longlist of 13 (in earlier times the list was often much longer) in late July or early August, a shortlist of six in September and the winner in October. The Prize has been split between two books twice, but the rules were changed after the second instance in 1992 and the judges must now pick a single winner. The prize is £50,000, as well as guaranteed sales of hundreds of thousands or more all around the world. It's also the only long-running literary award in the UK where every winner remains in in print.
Two authors have won twice, J M Coetzee and Peter Carey. Coetzee is one of four winners to go on to be awarded a Nobel Prize, the others being V S Naipaul, William Golding and Nadine Gordimer. The late Beryl Bainbridge gained notoriety as the eternal 'Booker bridesmaid', shortlisted on five occasions without winning. Iris Murdoch made the shortlist on six occasions, but was rewarded with the Prize in 1978. Debut authors have won on four occasions: neither Keri Hulme nor Arundhati Roy have written fiction since and the victories for D B C Pierre and Aravind Adiga left many commentators suggesting that the judges had been seduced by sensationalism and novelty than the literary skill that more seasoned writers tend to offer.
Given the importance of the Prize to sales and to the reputations of both writers and judges, it is not surprising that few years pass without controversy of some sort. Malcolm Muggeridge withdrew as a judge in 1971 after reading submissions left him "nauseated and appalled". In 1991, Nicholas Mosley walked out, saying that he didn't like any of the shortlisted titles. In 1994, Julia Neuberger chose to disassociate herself altogether from the winner, James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late. 2011 proved particularly controversial, with judge Chris Mullins' comment that the panel was primarily look for books that "zip along" provoking much media comment about the apparent promotion of 'readability' over literary merit.
The 2012 judging panel is chaired by Sir Peter Stothart, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He is joined by Dinah Birch, Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, historian and author Amanda Foreman, actor and cultural commentator Dan Stevens, and academic, writer and reviewer Bharat Tandon.
The longlist is announced on 25th July, the shortlist on 11th September (marked with at event at Southbank Centre on 15th October) and the winner on 16th October.
Read a blog by Ion Trewin, Literary Director of the Prize, on the 2011 shortlist
Read our Web Editor's blog on the 2011 longlist
Read interviews with some of 2011's longlisted authors: Esi Edugyan, Stephen Kelman, Alison Pick, Patrick McGuinness, Jane Rogers and Patrick DeWitt, along with Yvvette Edwards' account of how she went about writing A Cupboard Full of Coats and Carol Birch's favourite sea-faring stories.
Other Man Booker prizes
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Prize, three former judges were asked to pick their 'Booker of Bookers' from the previous winners. They chose Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the book which was also named the Best of the Booker on the 40th anniversary.
In 2010 a one-off prize, the Lost Man Booker Prize was awarded to J G Farrell for his novel, The Troubles, which missed out at the time because the Prize ceased to be awarded retrospectively and became - as it is today - a prize for the best novel of the same year, meaning that most fiction released in 1970 was never eligible.
In 2011, the public were invited to vote for their favourite book of Beryl Bainbridge's five shortlisted entries: the Man Booker Beryl was awarded to her 1998 entry, Master Georgie.
An associated award, the Man Booker International Prize, is awarded every two years to writer of fiction for their body of work as a whole. Authors considered - there are no submissions - must write in English or be widely available in English translation. The prize fund is £60,000. The winners so far are Ismail Kadare (2005), Chinua Achebe (2007), Alice Munro (2009) and Philip Roth (2011).
One of the judges in 2011, Carmen Callil, founder of Virago, withdrew from the panel in protest at the other two judges' majority decision. She said of Roth's ongoing focus on male sexuality, 'He goes on and on and on about the same subject in almost every single book. It's as though he's sitting on your face and you can't breathe.'
The 2011 Winner
Previous Winners
2011: The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes
2010: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson
2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
2008: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
2007: The Gathering by Anne Enright
2006: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai
2005: The Sea by John Banville
2004: The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
2003: Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre
2002: Life of Pi by Yann Martel
2001: True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey
2000: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
1999: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
1998: Amsterdam by Ian McEwan
1997: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy
1996: Last Orders by Graham Swift
1995: The Ghost Road by Pat Barker
1994: How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman
1993: Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha by Roddy Doyle
1992: The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje AND Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth
1991: The Famished Road by Ben Okri
1990: Possession by A.S. Byatt
1989: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
1988: Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey
1987: Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively
1986: The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
1985: The Bone People by Keri Hulme
1984: Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
1983: The Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee
1982: Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally
1981: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
1980: Rites of Passage by William Golding
1979: Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald
1978: The Sea the Sea by Iris Murdoch
1977: Staying on by Paul Scott
1976: Saville by David Storey
1975: Heat and Dust by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
1974: Holiday by Stanley Middleton AND The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer
1973: The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell
1972: G by John Berger
1971: In a Free State by V.S.Naipaul
1970: The Elected Member by Bernice Rubens
1969: Something to Answer For by P.H. Newby