Booker Prize

The Booker Prize is a literary prize that is awarded each year to the best original novel written in the English language and published in the United Kingdom. The first Booker Award was given in 1969 to English Novelist P. H. Newby. The award was known as Booker–McConnell Prize at that time.

Key Points

• It was initially known as the Booker–McConnell Prize (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019). In the beginning, only novels written by South African, Commonwealth, and Irish citizens were eligible to receive the prize while in 2014 it was expanded to any English-language novel.
• The International Booker Prize is awarded for a book, translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
• An advisory committee is formed for selecting the winner, comprising of writers and publishers, among others. The advisory committee selects the judging panel.

Booker Prize 2020

‘Shuggie Bain’, the debut novel written by the Scottish American writer Douglas Stuart has won this year’s Booker Prize. The novel describes the story of boy who is growing up in Glasgow during 1980s with a mother battling an alcohol addiction. Stuart has won £50,000 as a part of the prize. He is also the only second Scottish writer to win the award after James Kelman in 1994. Six novels were shortlisted for the award that also included Indian writer Avni Doshi’s book Burnt Sugar. Other shortlisted novels were This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga, Girl in White Cotton, The New Wilderness by Diane Cook, Real Life by Brandon Taylor and The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste. Stuart was announced winner out of the 6 shortlisted writers.