Booker Prize Is Rescheduled to Make Way for Obama’s Memoir

The Booker’s decision to move out of Mr. Obama’s way could also fuel new criticism that the prize, originally established in 1969 to honor writers from Commonwealth countries and the Republic of Ireland, has become too Americanized and increasingly focused on the U.S. book market. American authors have dominated the Booker nominees in recent years, following a 2014 rule change that made any novel written in English and published in the U.K. eligible.

Since the change, the American novelists Paul Beatty and George Saunders have won the prize; this year, out of the six shortlisted books, three are by American writers, while a fourth author holds dual Scottish and American nationality. Two years ago, a group of prominent writers argued that the foundation should ban American authors from eligibility, but the foundation was unswayed.

The Booker, which in previous years has been announced in October, will now be awarded directly after the National Book Awards, which will take place in an online ceremony on Nov. 18, potentially creating a logjam of coverage that could dilute the impact of the prizes.

“With them coming as close as they are to us, of course we’re concerned, we’re worried for our authors,” Lisa Lucas, the executive director of the National Book Foundation, which administers the National Book Awards, said in an interview. “It’s difficult to have a prize like the Booker, which didn’t need to participate in the American landscape in the years before their change, but now you have American books dominating the Booker list. They are now having to function on some level alongside our prizes.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/books/booker-prize-barack-obama-promised-land.html