Booker Prize for 'lost' 1970 novels

LONDON The Booker Prize Foundation has announced that it will organise a special edition this year for the best English novel published in 1970.

The prestigious literary prize was originally awarded for any book published in the previous year. In 1971 the rules were altered and the Booker Prize became an award for the best novel published in the same year.

Subsequently, a wealth of books by authors like Iris Murdoch, Joe Orton and Muriel Spark fell through the net and were never eligible.

However, the organisers have now decided to give the writers, some of whom have died in the meantime, the chance to win a special award, the Lost Man Booker Prize.

"Our longlist demonstrates that 1970 was a remarkable year for fiction written in English", Ion Trewin, literary director of the Man Booker Prizes, said on the BBC. "Recognition for these novels and the eventual winner is long overdue."

A panel of three judges, all of whom, funnily enough, were born around 1970, will select six titles from the 22 novel longlist.

The judges are journalist and critic Rachel Cooke, ITN newsreader Katie Derham and the poet and novelist Tobias Hill.

Their shortlist will be announced in March. The public will decide the winner by voting via the Man Booker Prize website.

The winner of the Lost Man Booker Prize will be announced in May.


Please vote for your favourite 1970 English novel via the poll on the left.


Lost Man Booker Prize longlist

Brian Aldiss, The Hand Reared Boy
HE Bates, A Little Of What You Fancy?
Nina Bawden, The Birds On The Trees
Melvyn Bragg, A Place In England
Christy Brown, Down All The Days
Len Deighton, Bomber
JG Farrell, Troubles
Elaine Feinstein, The Circle
Shirley Hazzard, The Bay Of Noon
Reginald Hill, A Clubbable Woman
Susan Hill, I'm The King Of The Castle
Francis King, A Domestic Animal
Margaret Laurence, The Fire Dwellers
David Lodge, Out Of The Shelter
Iris Murdoch, A Fairly Honourable Defeat
Shiva Naipaul, Fireflies
Patrick O'Brian, Master and Commander
Joe Orton, Head To Toe
Mary Renault, Fire From Heaven
Ruth Rendell, A Guilty Thing Surprised
Muriel Spark, The Driver's Seat
Patrick White, The Vivisector

///www.themanbookerprize.com