The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the
Man Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, wh ...
awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970 as the books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the prize was awarded to books published in the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. The prize was won by
J. G. Farrell for ''
Troubles''.
Literary agent and archivist Peter Straus has been credited with conceiving the idea of a Man Booker Prize for the missing year after wondering why
Robertson Davies
William Robertson Davies (28 August 1913 – 2 December 1995) was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best known and most popular authors and one of its most distinguished " men of letters" ...
's 1970 novel ''
Fifth Business'' had not been included in the Man Booker Prize shortlist.
A longlist of 22 titles was drawn up by organisers. A shortlist of six was selected by
Rachel Cooke
Rachel Cooke (born 1969) is a British journalist and writer.
Early life
Cooke was born in Sheffield, England, and is the daughter of a university lecturer in botany and a biology teacher.
She went to school in Jaffa, Israel, until she was 11 ...
,
Katie Derham and
Tobias Hill, and revealed in
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
on 25 March 2010 when voting commenced on the Man Booker Prize website.
Voting closed on 23 April 2010.
The winner was announced on 19 May 2010.
Four of the shortlisted authors were dead; only
Nina Bawden and
Shirley Hazzard were alive to give their reactions to being included.
Bawden called it "astonishing actually ... I thought I knew all my books backwards but I couldn't remember what this one was about".
Hazzard regretted that her husband,
Francis Steegmuller, was no longer alive to witness the occasion.
won the 1973 Man Booker Prize for ''
The Siege of Krishnapur''.
Bawden and
Muriel Spark were previously shortlisted.
Tobias Hill said
Patrick White, noted for requesting that ''
The Twyborn Affair'' be removed from the 1979 Man Booker prize shortlist and known for his general disapproval of receiving awards, would be "spinning in his grave" if he had won the Lost Man Booker Prize for ''
The Vivisector''. However, White's literary executor, Barbara Mobbs, said he had left behind "no written evidence" that he would disapprove of a posthumous award and that she was "not going to run around saying take him out".
Shortlist
The shortlist as announced on 25 March 2010:
*
Nina Bawden—''
The Birds on the Trees'' (Virago)
*
J. G. Farrell—''
Troubles'' (Phoenix)
*
Shirley Hazzard—''
The Bay of Noon'' (Virago)
*
Mary Renault—''
Fire from Heaven'' (Arrow)
*
Muriel Spark—''
The Driver's Seat'' (Penguin)
*
Patrick White—''
The Vivisector'' (Vintage)
Winner
The prize was won by
J. G. Farrell's ''
Troubles'', with 38 percent of the public vote. It received more than twice the number of votes for the second-placed entry.
The prize came 40 years after the book's publication and 30 years after Farrell's death. The award of the prize was announced by
Antonia Fraser
Lady Antonia Margaret Caroline Fraser, (; born 27 August 1932) is a British author of history, novels, biographies and detective fiction. She is the widow of the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature, Harold Pinter (1930–2008), and prior to h ...
and accepted by Farrell's brother Richard. If ''Troubles'' had won the Man Booker Prize in 1970 Farrell would have been the first author to win it twice, as he won it in 1973 for ''
The Siege of Krishnapur''.
Farrell's literary agent claimed Farrell would have been "thrilled" to have won the prize.
See also
*
References
External links
The official website of the Man Booker Prize
;Related articles
*
*
{{Booker Prize
1970 in literature
2010 in literature
Booker Prize
English literary awards
2010 literary awards
2010 awards in the United Kingdom