MAN BOOKER PRIZE

From  next year Man Booker’s Prize will change. It will no longer be an exlcusive domain of Common Wealth writers. From 2014 onwards the Prize will be open to entries from all over the world. As of now, writers who write in English and whose work has been published UK are eligible for the award.

The ostensible  logic of the move is to universalize literature. To bring writers from diverse regions on a common platform to compete. This move will change the face of prize for ever.

Uptill now, the award was a  great platform for non-English speaking population, specifically Asian and African writers from the Commonwealth region. The award had a great aspirational value for Commonwealth writers. It promoted talent, and gave a fillip to fiction writing. Indians benefitted a lot from the award. Salman Rushdie, Kiran Desai and Arunadhati Roy rose to prominence with their work being anointed by the award.

Now things are going to change. Commonwealth writers will face tough competition from transnational writers. This may raise their bar, it might also swamp them out.

The fine print of the decision points to the growing unease of publishing houses whose domain is being encroached by technology firms like Amazon, Apple and Google. They have brought out e-reading devices like Kindle and ipad . Internet has democratized publishing. Books are more and more being made and released online. This move from the print to the digital has seen a rapid decline in the number of publishing establishments. Publishing industry itself is witnessing mergers and takeovers.  Clearly, the publishing proprietors are facing the music. One wonders if the recent change in rules of game of the Man Booker is the result of a  lobbied effort by this beleaguered publishing group.