This year’s Booker Prize winner was announced this week, with David Szalay’s novel Flesh taking home the prize. The Hungarian-British writer’s sixth novel has been described as “singular” by the judging panel, and Justine Jordan, writing in the Guardian, called it “risky.” But how important is literature’s biggest prize? Should we even still be paying attention to it?
The judging panel this year was chaired by author Roddy Doyle, winner of the 1993 Booker, and consisted of author Ayọ̀bámi Adébáyọ̀ (longlisted in 2023), literary critic Chris Power, author Kiley Reid (longlisted in 2020) and finally, Carrie Bradshaw herself – Sarah Jessica Parker. Her inclusion stirred up controversy over a potential conflict of interest, as her production company is adapting a novel by longlisted author Claire Adam.
The judging panel has been getting more interesting in recent years, inviting jury members from a range of disciplines, from musicians to critics, to actors and graphic novelists. Gaby Wood, who has been Chief Executive of the Booker Foundation since 2015, wrote on the selection process, saying: “It’s the group dynamic that matters, not just the individuals. You want some who respond to the heart in a book and others who are drawn to the head in it. They all need to be committed listeners.” This points to the modern Booker as a collaborative, creative endeavour undertaken by the whole panel, rather than the ego of one judge.
The judging panels have caused issues in the past, such as the infamous 2005 stalemate, where the judges could not decide between awarding John Banville’s The Sea and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go, leading head judge John Sutherland to break the tie himself, awarding it (in my opinion, incorrectly) to The Sea. This was a deeply unpopular choice – with Ishiguro’s novel going on to have enormous, enduring success (and even a terrible film adaptation).
All this to say, the judges get it wrong sometimes, but the modern Booker seems much more keen on the judging as a group project, focused on the individual differences of opinion each judges bring. And this has been showing in some of the recent winners.
The Booker has long been criticised as a stuffy, out-of-touch institution that awards pretentious books no one has ever read. Its critics say it upholds an antiquated sense of ‘literariness’ that is inaccessible to the average reader. And yes, some of that is true! But in many of the more recent years, the winners have been massively successful bestsellers. 2019’s (joint) winner, Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, was a huge success, filling book clubs all over the country. In the week after its win, it more than doubled its lifetime sales. As deeply critical as I am about the time the Booker made the first black woman to win the prize share it with an old white woman, it’s heartening to see just how much of an impact it made on Evaristo’s career.
Since Gaby Wood’s appointment, the winners have been increasingly popular, both before and after winning. I can’t deny the astronomical popularity of 2002’s winner Life of Pi, or 1982’s Schindler’s Ark (made into Spielberg’s Best Picture-winning Schindler’s List), but the frequency of bestsellers has been increasing. Other recent winners, such as last year’s Orbital by Samantha Harvey or 2020’s Shuggie Bain, have been hugely successful, with Shuggie Bain selling 25,000 copies in the week after the win alone.
In a world where bestsellers are increasingly being dictated by TikTok, it’s nice to still have a prize that generates bestsellers on their own merit. Although previous winners have been very stuffy, and some are forgotten about quite quickly, I like having an institution that champions good books, and has the power to obtain success for experimental or diverse literature. It’s like the Oscars. With every year, they face criticism for being out of touch and awarding films that nobody saw, but just last year, they gave Best Animated Feature to Flow, a Latvian film about a cat, made on a budget of €3.5 million. This year, the French animated film Arco has a strong chance of at least being nominated. Awarding it to Flow last year opened the doors for small-budget, internationally produced animated films to win big. The Booker is doing exactly the same.
Since Girl, Woman, Other‘s win, every year (save from 2024), at least one woman of colour has been shortlisted. If the Booker is seen awarding the top prize to a black woman, then there are doors opened for other black women to be future nominees and hopefully, winners. Experimental, strange books such as 2018’s winner Milkman are allowed to be big, genuine bestsellers. It gets people talking about books they wouldn’t usually talk about, and gives people the confidence to pick up something out of their comfort zone. It encourages reading weirder and wider, and tells the publishing industry that that is what people want.
The Booker directly champions wide, dedicated, thoughtful reading. In an age of convenience and TikTok tropes, I think there are worse targets for your ire than the Booker. Yes, they choose wrong sometimes. Yes, they have room for progress in championing marginalised voices and a wider array of books. But even just this year, the first-ever Children’s Booker Prize has been announced. They are capable of growth as an institution. But it depends on us tuning in and picking up the books.
