Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial. A five-person panel consisting of authors, publishers and journalists, as well as politicians, actors, artists and musicians, is appointed by the Booker Prize Foundation each year to choose the winning book. As of 2015, the chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation is Gaby Wood. A high-profile ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Booker Group
Booker Group Limited is a British food wholesale operator and subsidiary of Tesco. In January 2017, it was announced that the British multinational supermarket retailer Tesco had agreed to purchase the company for £3.7 billion. It was confirmed on 5 March 2018 that Tesco had completed its acquisition of Booker. History Origins The company was founded by George and Richard Booker in 1835, when they bought their first ship and established the Booker Line, which focused on shipping goods. It later diversified into the distribution of goods, and gradually disposed of its fleet of ships. With a new focus on wholesale food distribution, the company had over 100 warehouses across the United Kingdom by 1978, and was trading as Booker McConnell Ltd. Among other interests, it operated the sugar industry in Guyana ( British Guiana before independence in 1966), running five Booker Line ships, until it was nationalised around 1970. After six months, Booker was called back to market the s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tom Maschler
Thomas Michael Maschler (16 August 193315 October 2020) was a British publisher and writer. He was noted for instituting the Booker Prize for British, Irish and Commonwealth literature in 1969. He was involved in publishing the works of many notable authors, including Ernest Hemingway, Joseph Heller, Gabriel García Márquez, John Lennon, Ian McEwan, Bruce Chatwin and Salman Rushdie. Early life Maschler was born in Berlin, Germany, to Austrian Jewish parents, Rita (Masseron) and Kurt Leo Maschler on 16 August 1933. His father was a publisher's representative. Maschler was five years old when his family fled to the UK from Vienna after the Nazi annexation (''Anschluss'') of Austria. After his parents' separation, he moved to Henley-on-Thames, where his mother took on a housekeeping job. After studying at the Leighton Park School, he went to Roscoff, France, where he earned a scholarship to spend the summer in an Israeli kibbutz. It is mentioned that he had written a letter to I ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Marxism
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand Social class, class relations and social conflict and a dialectical perspective to view social transformation. It originates from the works of 19th-century German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As Marxism has developed over time into various branches and schools of thought, no single, definitive Marxist philosophy, Marxist theory exists. In addition to the schools of thought which emphasize or modify elements of classical Marxism, various Marxian concepts have been incorporated and adapted into a diverse array of Social theory, social theories leading to widely varying conclusions. Alongside Marx's critique of political economy, the defining characteristics of Marxism have often been described using the terms dialectical mater ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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John Berger
John Peter Berger (; 5 November 1926 – 2 January 2017) was an English art critic, novelist, painter and poet. His novel '' G.'' won the 1972 Booker Prize, and his essay on art criticism ''Ways of Seeing'', written as an accompaniment to the BBC series of the same name, was influential. He lived in France for over fifty years. Early life Berger was born on 5 November 1926 in Stoke Newington, London, the first of two children of Miriam and Stanley Berger. His grandfather was from Trieste, Italy,The Books Interview: John BergerThe Books Interview: John Berger accessdate: 2 January 2017 and his father, Stanley, raised as a non-religious Jew who adopted Catholicism, had been an infantry officer on the Western Front during the First World War and was awarded the Military Cross and an OBE. Berger was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford. He served in the British Army during the Second World War from 1944 to 1946. He enrolled at the Chelsea School of Art and the Central Schoo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Troubles (novel)
''Troubles'' is a 1970 novel by J. G. Farrell. The plot concerns the dilapidation of a once-grand Irish hotel (the Majestic), in the midst of the political upheaval during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921). It is the first instalment in Farrell's acclaimed "Empire Trilogy", preceding ''The Siege of Krishnapur'' and ''The Singapore Grip''. Although there are similar themes within the three novels (most notably that of the British Empire), they do not form a sequence of storytelling. ''Troubles'' was well received upon its publication. It won the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and, later, the Lost Man Booker Prize. It was adapted into a made-for-television film in 1988, starring Ian Charleson and Ian Richardson. In 2010, Sam Jordison in ''The Guardian'' called ''Troubles'' "a work of genius", and "one of the best books" of the second half of the twentieth century. "Had arrellnot sadly died so young," Salman Rushdie said in 2008, "there is no question that he would today ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lost Man Booker Prize
The Lost Man Booker Prize was a special edition of the Man Booker Prize awarded by a public vote in 2010 to a novel from 1970 as the books published in 1970 were not eligible for the Man Booker Prize due to a rules alteration; until 1970 the prize was awarded to books published in the previous year, while from 1971 onwards it was awarded to books published the same year as the award. The prize was won by J. G. Farrell for ''Troubles''. Literary agent and archivist Peter Straus has been credited with conceiving the idea of a Man Booker Prize for the missing year after wondering why Robertson Davies's 1970 novel ''Fifth Business'' had not been included in the Man Booker Prize shortlist. A longlist of 22 titles was drawn up by organisers. A shortlist of six was selected by Rachel Cooke, Katie Derham and Tobias Hill, and revealed in London on 25 March 2010 when voting commenced on the Man Booker Prize website. Voting closed on 23 April 2010. The winner was announced on 19 May 2010. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Elected Member
''The Elected Member'' is a novel by Welsh writer Bernice Rubens. It won the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1970. Plot The novel's main character is Norman Zweck, who is addicted to amphetamines Substituted amphetamines are a class of compounds based upon the amphetamine structure; it includes all derivative compounds which are formed by replacing, or substituting, one or more hydrogen atoms in the amphetamine core structure with sub ... and is convinced that he sees silverfish wherever he goes. Awards ''The Elected Member'' won the 1970 Booker Prize. This made Rubens the first woman (and as of 2021, the only Welsh author) to win the prize. ReferencesReview of ''The Elected Member'' from the Booker Blog 'The Guardian' Booker Prize-winning works 1969 British novels Novels by Bernice Rubens Eyre & Spottiswoode books {{1970s-novel-stub ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bernice Rubens
Bernice Rubens (26 July 1923 – 13 October 2004) was a Welsh novelist.She became the first woman to win the Booker Prize in 1970, for '' The Elected Member''. Personal history Bernice Ruth Reuben was born in Splott, Cardiff on 26 July 1923, the third of four children of Eli Reuben and his wife Dorothy, . Her father was a Lithuanian Jew who, at the age of 16, left mainland Europe in 1900 in the hope of starting a new life in New York City. Due to being swindled by a ticket tout, he never reached the United States, his passage taking him no further than Cardiff. He decided to stay in Wales, and there he met and married Dorothy Cohen, whose Polish family had also emigrated to Cardiff. Bernice was one of four children and came from a musical family, both her brothers, Harold and Cyril, becoming well-known classical musicians. Harold was forced to quit playing through illness, but Cyril became a violinist in the London Symphony Orchestra. Bernice failed to follow in her family' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Frank Kermode
Sir John Frank Kermode, FBA (29 November 1919 – 17 August 2010) was a British literary critic best known for his 1967 work '' The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction'' and for his extensive book-reviewing and editing. He was the Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College London and the King Edward VII Professor of English Literature at Cambridge University. Kermode was known for many works of criticism, and also as editor of the popular Fontana Modern Masters series of introductions to modern thinkers. He was a regular contributor to the ''London Review of Books'' and ''The New York Review of Books''. Early life and education Kermode was born on the Isle of Man, the only son and elder child of John Pritchard Kermode (1894-1966) and Doris Pearl (1893-1967), née Kennedy. His father was a delivery truck driver and warehouseman for a ferry company, and his mother, a "farm girl", had been a waitress. The family was of "extremel ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Stephen Spender
Sir Stephen Harold Spender (28 February 1909 – 16 July 1995) was an English poet, novelist and essayist whose work concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the United States Library of Congress in 1965. Early life Spender was born in Kensington, London, to journalist Harold Spender and Violet Hilda Schuster, a painter and poet, of German Jewish heritage. He went first to Hall School in Hampstead and then at 13 to Gresham's School, Holt and later Charlecote School in Worthing, but he was unhappy there. On the death of his mother, he was transferred to University College School (Hampstead), which he later described as "that gentlest of schools". Spender left for Nantes and Lausanne and then went up to University College, Oxford (much later, in 1973, he was made an honorary fellow). Spender said at various times throughout his life that he never passed any exam. Perhaps his closest friend and th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Rebecca West
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books for ''The Times'', the '' New York Herald Tribune'', ''The Sunday Telegraph'' and ''The New Republic'', and she was a correspondent for '' The Bookman''. Her major works include '' Black Lamb and Grey Falcon'' (1941), on the history and culture of Yugoslavia; ''A Train of Powder'' (1955), her coverage of the Nuremberg trials, published originally in ''The New Yorker''; ''The Meaning of Treason'' (first published as a magazine article in 1945 and then expanded to the book in 1947), later ''The New Meaning of Treason'' (1964), a study of the trial of the British fascist William Joyce and others; ''The Return of the Soldier'' (1918), a modernist World War I novel; and the "Aubrey trilogy" of autobiographical novels, ''The Fountain Overflows' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Guardian Media Group, owned by the Scott Trust. The trust was created in 1936 to "secure the financial and editorial independence of ''The Guardian'' in perpetuity and to safeguard the journalistic freedom and liberal values of ''The Guardian'' free from commercial or political interference". The trust was converted into a limited company in 2008, with a constitution written so as to maintain for ''The Guardian'' the same protections as were built into the structure of the Scott Trust by its creators. Profits are reinvested in journalism rather than distributed to owners or shareholders. It is considered a newspaper of record in the UK. The editor-in-chief Katharine Viner succeeded Alan Rusbridger in 2015. Since 2018, the paper's main news ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |