18 September 2017
Complaining about the Man Booker Prize is an important British tradition. Since its inception-as simply the Booker Prize, in 1969-it has been criticized for its imperialist overtones, its unwillingness to take risks, and, above all, its corrupt insularity. Though any writer from the Commonwealth was eligible, the winner was determined by a small and incestuous circle of London elites. In 2001, the comic novelist A.L. Kennedy described the Booker as being decided by "who knows who, who's sleeping with who, who's selling drugs to who, who's married to who, whose turn it is."
