Fairness and Reciprocity

The Man Booker Prize was awarded on October 15, 2013, to Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries—an exceptional outcome for many reasons. Catton is a New Zealander, and she followed Keri Hulme (for The Bone People, 1985) as only the second winner from that country. Catton is the youngest winner in the history of the prize—only 28 years of age (and this is her second novel); and The Luminaries is the longest winner, at 848 pages. But much of the conversation surrounding the Booker Prize in 2013 had little to do with the winner, or the shortlist, or the judges. It was about the approach of the Americans and how that inclusion would change the award.

On September 18, Jonathan Taylor, chairman of the Booker Prize Foundation, announced a change in the rules. Historically the prize has been open to a citizen of the United Kingdom, the British Commonwealth of Nations, the Republic of Ireland, or Zimbabwe for a book published in the U.K. in the English language during the year of the award. Though there may be other English-language authors besides the Americans who were ineligible, it is hard to think of where they might come from. In the Company of Men, by Hisham Matar, was shortlisted in 2007 despite its author’s being a Libyan. So it was probably correct that the (Man) Booker welcomed everyone writing in English except U.S. writers.

For more than a decade there has been worried discussion about admitting Americans. In 2002 the threat came up, and at that time Lisa Jardine, a judge, said that British authors would find it harder to prevail were Philip Roth and Saul Bellow to be admitted. Jardine’s words caused a controversy; it was a delicate matter to argue that the Americans should not be eligible without seeming protectionist. If the Commonwealth writers were as good as the Americans, then why should they be afraid of competition? In the event no such change was made, but instead a new prize was instituted, the Man Booker International Prize, which, beginning in 2004, recognized one world author for a body of work rather than one title. The shortlist in 2005 contained four Americans—including the dread Roth and Bellow—but the upset winner was the Albanian Ismail Kadare. The five winners since then have included two Americans (Philip Roth and Lydia Davis), a Canadian, and a Nigerian.

In 2013 the Americans-are-coming cry went up again, and this time it proved true. There were several different reactions, all of them more or less negative, from non-American novelists. A few commentators did seem to agree with the organizers that the change would produce stronger winners. Kazuo Ishiguro, a former Booker winner for The Remains of the Day, seemed a little nervous but suggested that the organizers had recently been disappointed in the quality of recent entries. A professor of American literature at the University of Reading stated that of the thirteen Booker winners since 2000 only two would have prevailed if there had been American competition, and the only twenty-first century winner good enough to compare with American novelists is Margaret Atwood, who is of course Canadian. Another past winner, the Irishman John Banville, welcomed the enlargement but then whimpered, “God help the rest of us because American fiction is very strong.” Most people quoted opposed the change, including many former Booker winners, such as Julian Barnes and Howard Jacobson, as well as shortlisted authors, including this year’s Jim Crace.

What is the objection? There are several. Some point to a threatened change in the character of the award, others a feeling that it has...