The late novelist J. G. Farrell was honored on Wednesday with the Lost Man Booker Prize, awarded for Troubles (Phoenix), which was published during a period in 1970 when changes in the prestigious prize's publication date guidelines rendered many books ineligible for entry.
The prize, given just this once to recognize a book released during that time, is the second Booker for a work by Farrell, who won the 1973 award for the second novel in a trilogy that began with Troubles, The Siege of Krishnapur (Weidenfeld & Nicolson
). Farrell died in 1979 in Ireland's Bantry Bay.
The winning book was selected by public vote by a majority— 38 percent—from a shortlist that included The Birds on The Trees (Virago Press) by Nina Bawden, The Bay of Noon (Virago Press) by Shirley Hazzard, Fire From Heaven (Arrow Books) by Mary Renault, The Driver's Seat (Penguin Classics) by Muriel Spark, The Vivisector (Vintage) by Nobel Prize–winner Patrick White. The semifinalists were determined by poet Tobias Hill, broadcaster Katie Derham, and journalist Rachel Cooke.
Troubles, which has not been out-of-print since its publication, was most recently published in a U.S. edition by New York Review Books Classics in 2002.