Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize, an annual prize of £50,000 (originally £20,000) for a work of fiction by a living British, Irish, or Commonwealth writer. Great Britain's premier literary award, it was originally known as the Booker Prize and in 1969 was underwritten by the British food-distribution company Booker PLC, now part of The Big Food Group PLC. In 2002 the Man Group, a British hedge fund, became a co-sponsor of the award, which was renamed. Recipients of the award have included V. S. Naipaul, Nadine Gordimer, Iris Murdoch, Salman Rushdie, A. S. Byatt, J. M. Coetzee, Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, and Ian McEwan. In 2004 an additional award, the Man Booker International Prize,. was introduced. An award of £60,000 given for overall achievement in fiction, it is presented every two years to a living author of any nationality whose fiction is either written in English or is generally available in English translation. It was first given (2005) to the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare. In 2007 yet another award was announced, the Man Asian Literary Prize.. Initiated by the Hong Kong International Literary Festival Ltd. with the financial support of the Man Group, it aims to bring exciting new Asian writers to the attention of the world literary community, to encourage the translation and publication in English of such Asian works, and to emphasize Asia's increasing role in world literature. The prize awards $10,000 to the winning writer and $3,000 to the translator.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.

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