₦airaland Forum

THE 2007 BOOKER PRIZE


The judges for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction announce their longlist of books in the running for the prize this year.

This longlist of 13 books, the ‘Man Booker Dozen’, was chosen from 110 entries; 92 were submitted for the prize and 18 were called in by the judges.


The longlist is:

Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador)
The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking)
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (Tindal Street)
Consolation by Michael Redhill (William Heinemann)
Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
Winnie & Wolf by A.N.Wilson (Hutchinson)
Chair of judges, Howard Davies, comments:

“This year’s longlist is very diverse, with four first time novelists as well as some more familiar names. All the books chosen are well-crafted and will appeal to a wide readership.”

2007 judges
The judging panel for the 2007 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Howard Davies, Director of the London School of Economics and Political Science; Wendy Cope, poet; Giles Foden, journalist and author; Ruth Scurr, biographer and critic and Imogen Stubbs, actor and writer.

Website launch
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction website has been relaunched to coincide with the longlist announcement. It now includes several new sections including Perspective, an online magazine including author interviews and news, and the debate section where readers can hold interactive debates.

Shortlist
The 2007 shortlist will be announced on Thursday 6th September at a press conference at Man Group’s London office. The winner will be announced on Tuesday 16th October at an awards ceremony at Guildhall, London.

The Bridport prize is now closed until next year. For those who took part in this year's competition, the results will be released in November 2007.

Ndipe:
@SMC,

Let me ask this question, "Do you really think that his inability to win the prize has in someway dented his image as Africa's leading writer"? If your response is Yes, explain why, and if it is "No", then, why seek the award?

Unfortunately, I cannot answer your question as it is founded on a false premise to begin with. You wrongly assume that I agree that Achebe is Africa's leading writer. He is NOT. He is ONE of Africa's leading writer, but I do not think he is the leading writer.

I assume you will proceed to aske me who I think Africa's leading writer is. My answer is I do not think that currently there is any single writer that is (or should be) regarded as Africa's leading writer. Africa has a good number of outstanding writers and these include the Francophone and Arabic writers. I am not conceited enough to say that I know all the gret African writers much less have read all their works.

If the title of Africa's Leading Writer is bestowed merely on the volume of copies a writers single work has sold, then Achebe can be regarded as Africa's leading writer. But that is not the yardstick and he is not the single leading writer we have on the African continent.

I remember reading this story sometime back.

@ Poster, It seems that this is your favourite short story (or one of your favourites) as you mentioned it in a previous thread and have gone on to reproduce it here.

lovemajek:
writer na writer, just because the man na Black, and time never reach for black then.

Quite a number of black men have won the award so please let's not start this racism issue.

Ndipe:
Should winning the Nobel prize be a do or die affair? It amazes me that some African writers who are anti-colonialist, would at the same time look upto the Nobel prize (instituted by a non-black man) as a validation of their eminent status in the literary field. What an irony!

It is not an irony at all. Why should everything instituted or created by people of a different race be anathema to Africans? People seem to suggest that if you desire or aspire something that originates from white people then you are being contradictory to your African beliefs. This is definitely not the case.

People aspire to great things and I'm sure that no writer, scientist etc will tell you that they want their work to be only enjoyed/appreciated locally. It is a mark of greatness for one's work to be recognised far and wide. One prize that transcends different fields is the Nobel prize. When the Swede, Alfred Nobel was creating the prize, he did not think of an award that would be restricted to his native country or even his continent. He wanted some recognition and plaudits for outstanding contributions in physics, chemistry, literature, peace, and physiology or medicine (no matter where these contributions came from).

Let us not trivialise the weight and importance that this prize has on experts and turn it into a black versus white thing. After all is said and done about how the selection process involves a lot of politics, no one can say that winners who have been awarded the prize are mediocre in their fields. The various Nobel prizes awarded in the different categories, have become the "supreme commendations in their subject areas". This fact more than anything is not lost on Achebe himself.

@ Original poster, the title of the topic is wrongly worded. It should read either "Why Has Achebe Not Won The Nobel Prize" or "Why is Achebe Not a Nobel Laureate"?

Khaleefa:
I’ve heard the winds howls
Countless bells’ chimes
Far in the Savannah, Lions growls

It is wrong grammatically to use the plural "howls" and "growls" the way you have done {within the lines/sentence}. I'd advice you to take out the "s" in both and leave them as "howl" and "growl"

PTH:
i'm not sure that was "wages of sin". I think the main figure in the book was a randy man who went about sleeping with women around town until nemesis caught up with him.

The Wages of Sin is definitely the title of the book I described (though I do not know the name of the author so I cannot confirm if it is Ibe Oparandu).

ziddy:
The Wages Of Sin. . . by Ibe Oparandu, i think. very nice book

Yes. That is the book. It was one of my favourite pacesetters in those days.

Seems familiar Ndipe, but some bits sound like they are from a different book.

muhsin:
An African Night Entertainment-Cyprian Ekwensy

This book takes me down memory lane.

I used to love Pacesetters when I was a wee lass.

The Delinquent, The Undesirable Element, Sisi, Too Cold for Comfort, Sweet Revenge, Agony in her Voice, Love on the Rocks, Bloodbath at Lobster Close, The Cyclist, For Mbata and Rebecca (I hope I got the spelling right), e.t.c.

I could go on and on. Who can remember the title of the pacesetter where the guy had a girlfriend. He went abroad i think and she was promiscuous and kept sleeping around. When he came back he wanted to marry her despite people telling him of her infidelity. To cut a long story short, they went sightseeing somewhere in igboland and inside the cave the girl disappeared to shag another guy, so the protagonist dumped her. By the time the she had been through the mill and came back to beg him, he was already married and his wife was preganant.

If you remember this book, please post the title on this thread.

lol

k0be:
you can have a nairaland poetry contest, lol

LOL. Who shall be the judges? LOL. I see blows being thrown by contesting poets.

Quite a number of sites ask you to pay for the "priviledge" of entering your poem in their contests.

I believe Seun's auto correct engine has replaced quite a few of the word "Bleep" and replaced it with "mess". Truly hilarious.

This thread is a duplicate. There is already a thread with this title. Post your comment there and view what others have written on the book.

obong:
how is she a role model when she says she isnt even african?

She never said that. Period!

ziddy:
how valid are her fictional approximations of the african spiritual/mythological experience if she does not identify as African? she sounds both hypocritical and contradictory to me.

Like I said before, you do not have to be African to write about anything African. There is no contradiction in that. Soon you'll tell me that Ibo people cannot write about Yoruba topics and vice versa.

Ndipe:
How many non-africans have written on the subject of mythology in Africa, apart from Africans, sociologists, and perhaps, AA?

I cannot pretend that I know everyone who has written on subjects that are related to Africa whether they are African or non-African. I'm sure that you don't know either, so don't you start.

And by the way, I was not "defending" Oyeyemi. I was merely stating the obvious that Obong had mis-quoted her. I do not believe she needs any defending as she can choose to be whatever she likes. It is a free country and a free world.

The write up titled FOR EVERY PRIZE THERE IS A PRICE was half-finished.

Dipo what happened?