The Man Booker Prize, the prestigious annual award given for a novel by a writer from the British Commonwealth or Ireland, will celebrate its fortieth anniversary by honoring one of its previous winners with the Best of the Booker Prize, judged ultimately by the reading public. Anyone may cast a vote for one of the six Best of the Booker finalists, selected from forty-one winning novels dating back to 1969 by judges Victoria Glendinning, Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan.
The finalists are The Ghost Road (Viking, 1995) by Pat Barker, Oscar and Lucinda (Faber and Faber, 1988) by Peter Carey, Disgrace (Secker & Warburg, 1999) by J. M. Coetzee, The Siege of Krishnapur (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973) by J. G. Farrell, The Conservationist (Jonathan Cape, 1974) by Nadine Gordimer, and Midnight's Children (Jonathan Cape, 1981) by Salman Rushdie, which won the Booker of Bookers, a special award given on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Booker.
"We really feel that the six novels we picked represent the best
fiction writing of the past forty years and that each one of them will stand the test of time," said Glendinning. "As to which of the six is
the most important, and the most enjoyable, the Best of Booker—that
is up to the readers to decide."
Votes may be registered on the Man Booker Prize Web site, or sent via SMS text message, until July 8. The winner will be announced on July 10 during the London Literature Festival at the Southbank Centre.
