A month after Paul Beatty became the first American to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for his novel The Sellout, British authors including Julian Barnes, Philip Hensher and Susan Hill, among others, have called for the prize to follow the original rules and be made exclusive to British, Irish, Commonwealth and Zimbabwean writers.

Barnes, who won the £50,000 prize in 2011 for his novel The Sense of an Ending, criticised the decision to include US authors because “[t]he Americans have got enough prizes of their own. The idea of (the Booker) being Britain, Ireland, the old Commonwealth countries and new voices in English from around the world gave it a particular character and meant it could bring on writers. If you also include Americans — and get a couple of heavy hitters — then the unknown Canadian novelist hasn’t got a chance.”

Published in Dawn, Books & Authors, December 4th, 2016