History and administration

The prize was originally known as the Booker–McConnell Prize, after the company Booker,
McConnell Ltd began sponsoring the event in 1969;[5] it became commonly known as the
"Booker Prize" or simply "the Booker".

When administration of the prize was transferred to the Booker Prize Foundation in 2002,
the title sponsor became the investment company Man Group, which opted to retain
"Booker" as part of the official title of the prize. The foundation is an independent registered
charity funded by the entire profits of Booker Prize Trading Ltd, of which it is the sole
shareholder.[6] The prize money awarded with the Booker Prize was originally £21,000, and
was subsequently raised to £50,000 in 2002 under the sponsorship of the Man Group,
making it one of the world's richest literary prizes.

In 1970, Bernice Rubens became the first woman to win the Booker Prize, for The Elected
Member.[7] The rules of the Booker changed in 1971; previously, it had been awarded
retrospectively to books published prior to the year in which the award was given. In 1971
the year of eligibility was changed to the same as the year of the award; in effect, this meant
that books published in 1970 were not considered for the Booker in either year. The Booker
Prize Foundation announced in January 2010 the creation of a special award called the
"Lost Man Booker Prize", with the winner chosen from a longlist of 22 novels published in
1970.[8]

Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid was shortlisted in 1980, and remains the only short story
collection to be shortlisted.[9]

John Sutherland, who was a judge for the 1999 prize, has said,

There is a well-established London literary community. Rushdie doesn't get

shortlisted now because he has attacked that community. That is not a good
game plan if you want to win the Booker. Norman Mailer has found the same
thing in the US – you have to "be a citizen" if you want to win prizes. The real
scandal is that [Martin] Amis has never won the prize. In fact, he has only been
shortlisted once and that was for Time's Arrow, which was not one of his
strongest books. That really is suspicious. He pissed people off with Dead
Babies and that gets lodged in the culture. There is also the feeling that he has
always looked towards America.[10]

In 1972, winning writer John Berger, known for his Marxist worldview, protested during his
acceptance speech against Booker McConnell. He blamed Booker's 130 years of sugar
production in the Caribbean for the region's modern poverty.[11][12] Berger donated half of his
£5,000 prize to the British Black Panther movement, because it had a socialist and
revolutionary perspective in agreement with his own.[5][11][13]

In 1980, Anthony Burgess, writer of Earthly Powers, refused to attend the ceremony unless it
was confirmed to him in advance whether he had won.[5] His was one of two books
considered likely to win, the other being Rites of Passage by William Golding. The judges
decided only 30 minutes before the ceremony, giving the prize to Golding. Both novels had
been seen as favourites to win leading up to the prize, and the dramatic "literary battle"
between two senior writers made front-page news.[5][14]

In 1981, nominee John Banville wrote a letter to The Guardian requesting that the prize be
given to him so that he could use the money to buy every copy of the longlisted books in
Ireland and donate them to libraries, "thus ensuring that the books not only are bought but
also read — surely a unique occurrence."[5][15]

Judging for the 1983 award produced a draw between J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of
Michael K and Salman Rushdie's Shame, leaving chair of judges Fay Weldon to choose
between the two. According to Stephen Moss in The Guardian, "Her arm was bent and she
chose Rushdie" only to change her mind as the result was being phoned through.[10]

In 1993, two of the judges threatened to walk out when Trainspotting appeared on the
longlist; Irvine Welsh's novel was pulled from the shortlist to satisfy them. The novel would
later receive critical acclaim, and is now considered Welsh's masterpiece.[16]

The choice of James Kelman's book How Late It Was, How Late as 1994 Booker Prize
winner proved to be one of the most controversial in the award's history.[17] Rabbi Julia
Neuberger, one of the judges, declared it "a disgrace" and left the event, later deeming the
book to be "crap"; WHSmith's marketing manager called the award "an embarrassment to
the whole book trade"; Waterstone's in Glasgow sold a mere 13 copies of Kelman's book the
following week.[18] In 1994, The Guardian's literary editor Richard Gott, citing the lack of
objective criteria and the exclusion of American authors, described the prize as "a significant
and dangerous iceberg in the sea of British culture that serves as a symbol of its current
malaise."[5][19]

In 1997, the decision to award Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things proved
controversial. Carmen Callil, chair of the previous year's Booker judges, called it an
"execrable" book and said on television that it shouldn't even have been on the shortlist.
Booker Prize chairman Martyn Goff said Roy won because nobody objected, following the
rejection by the judges of Bernard MacLaverty's shortlisted book due to their dismissal of
him as "a wonderful short-story writer and that Grace Notes was three short stories strung
together."[20]

Before 2001, each year's longlist of nominees was not publicly revealed.[21]

In 2001, A. L. Kennedy, who was a judge in 1996, called the prize "a pile of crooked
nonsense" with the winner determined by "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's
selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is".[10]

The Booker Prize created a permanent home for the archives from 1968 to present at Oxford
Brookes University Library. The Archive, which encompasses the administrative history of
the Prize from 1968 to date, collects together a diverse range of material, including
correspondence, publicity material, copies of both the Longlists and the Shortlists, minutes of
meetings, photographs and material relating to the awards dinner (letters of invitation, guest
lists, seating plans). Embargoes of ten or twenty years apply to certain categories of
material; examples include all material relating to the judging process and the Longlist prior
to 2002.[22]

Between 2005 and 2008, the Booker Prize alternated between writers from Ireland and
India. "Outsider" John Banville began this trend in 2005 when his novel The Sea was
selected as a surprise winner:[23] Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent, famously
condemned it as "possibly the most perverse decision in the history of the award" and rival
novelist Tibor Fischer poured scorn on Banville's victory.[24] Kiran Desai of India won in 2006.
Anne Enright's 2007 victory came about due to a jury badly split over Ian McEwan's novel
On Chesil Beach. The following year it was India's turn again, with Aravind Adiga narrowly
defeating Enright's fellow Irishman Sebastian Barry.[25]

Historically, the winner of the Booker Prize had been required to be a citizen of the
Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe. It was announced on 18
September 2013 that future Booker Prize awards would consider authors from anywhere in
the world, so long as their work was in English and published in the UK.[26] This change
proved controversial in literary circles. Former winner A. S. Byatt and former judge John
Mullan said the prize risked diluting its identity, whereas former judge A. L. Kennedy
welcomed the change.[2][3][27] Following this expansion, the first winner not from the
Commonwealth, Ireland, or Zimbabwe was American Paul Beatty in 2016. Another
American, George Saunders, won the following year.[28] In 2018, publishers sought to
reverse the change, arguing that the inclusion of American writers would lead to
homogenisation, reducing diversity and opportunities everywhere, including in America, to
learn about "great books that haven't already been widely heralded."[27]

Man Group announced in early 2019 that the year's prize would be the last of 18 under their
sponsorship.[29] A new sponsor, Crankstart - a charitable foundation run by Sir Michael
Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman - then announced it would sponsor the award for five
years, with the option to renew for another five years. The award title was changed to simply
"The Booker Prize".[30]

Judging
The selection process for the winner of the prize commences with the formation of an
advisory committee, which includes a writer, two publishers, a literary agent, a bookseller, a
librarian, and a chairperson appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation. The advisory
committee then selects the judging panel, the membership of which changes each year,
although on rare occasions a judge may be selected a second time. Judges are selected
from amongst leading literary critics, writers, academics and leading public figures.

The Booker judging process and the very concept of a "best book" being chosen by a small
number of literary insiders is controversial for many. The Guardian introduced the "Not the
Booker Prize" voted for by readers partly as a reaction to this.[31] Author Amit Chaudhuri
wrote: "The idea that a 'book of the year' can be assessed annually by a bunch of people –
judges who have to read almost a book a day – is absurd, as is the idea that this is any way
of honouring a writer."[32]
The winner is usually announced at a ceremony in London's Guildhall, usually in early
October.