The Booker Prize, which was first called the Booker Prize for Fiction from 1969 to 2001 and the Man Booker Prize from 2002 to 2019, is an award given yearly for the best long story written in English that was published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. It is considered one of the most important literary awards, and the winner receives £50,000 and international attention that often increases the book’s sales. When the prize was first created, only novels written by people from the Commonwealth, Ireland, South Africa (and later Zimbabwe) were eligible to win; in 2014, the rules changed to include any English-language novel, a decision that caused debate.
Each year, a group of five people, including authors, publishers, journalists, and others such as politicians, actors, and artists, is chosen by the Booker Prize Foundation to select the winning book. Gaby Wood has been the leader of the Booker Prize Foundation since 2015.
The Booker Prize is a well-known award in British culture and is highly anticipated worldwide. Literary critics note that being on the shortlist or longlist of the prize is a sign of recognition for authors.
A related award, the International Booker Prize, is given for a fiction book translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Unlike the Booker Prize, short story collections are allowed to compete for the International Booker Prize. The prize money of £50,000 is divided equally between the author and the translator of the winning book. A third award, the Children's Booker Prize, was started in 2025, with the first winner to be announced in 2027.
History and administration
The prize was named the "Booker Prize for Fiction" when the company Booker, McConnell Ltd began supporting it in 1969. The first award ceremony took place on Tuesday, 22 April, at Drapers' Hall on Throgmorton Street in the City of London. It became known as the "Booker Prize" or the "Booker." Jock Campbell, Charles Tyrrell, and Tom Maschler helped create the prize.
In 2002, the prize was managed by the Booker Prize Foundation. The new sponsor was the investment company Man Group, which kept "Booker" in the prize's name. The foundation is an independent charity funded by all profits from Booker Prize Trading Ltd, which owns it. The prize money started at £5,000. It increased to £10,000 in 1978 and then to £50,000 in 2002, making it one of the richest literary prizes in the world. Each shortlisted author receives £2,500 and a special edition of their book.
The original Booker Prize trophy was designed by artist Jan Pieńkowski. This design was used again for the 2023 prize.
The first winner was P. H. Newby in 1969 for his novel Something to Answer For. W. L. Webb, The Guardian's Literary Editor, led the first group of judges, which included Rebecca West, Stephen Spender, Frank Kermode, and David Farrer.
In 1970, Bernice Rubens became the first woman to win the Booker Prize for The Elected Member.
In 1971, the rules changed. Previously, the prize was given to books published the year before the award. After the change, the prize was given to books published in the same year as the award. This meant books published in 1970 were not considered for the 1970 or 1971 prizes. In 2010, the Booker Prize Foundation created a special award called the "Lost Man Booker Prize" for books published in 1970. J. G. Farrell won for Troubles, though he had died in 1979.
In 1972, John Berger, a writer with a Marxist viewpoint, criticized Booker McConnell during his speech. He blamed the company's 130 years of sugar production in the Caribbean for the region's poverty. He donated half of his £5,000 prize to the British Black Panther movement.
In 1980, Anthony Burgess, author of Earthly Powers, refused to attend the ceremony unless he was told in advance if he had won. His book and Rites of Passage by William Golding were both considered favorites. The judges decided only 30 minutes before the ceremony, awarding the prize to Golding. The event made headlines.
Alice Munro's The Beggar Maid was shortlisted in 1980. It remains the only short-story collection to be shortlisted, though another short-story collection, Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq, later won the International Booker Prize in 2025.
In 1981, John Banville asked The Guardian to give him the prize so he could buy all longlisted books in Ireland and donate them to libraries. The prize was won by Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children.
In 1983, the judges could not decide between J. M. Coetzee's Life & Times of Michael K and Salman Rushdie's Shame. Chair of judges Fay Weldon chose Rushdie, but later changed her mind. At the ceremony, she criticized publishers for treating authors unfairly.
In 1992, the prize was split between Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient and Barry Unsworth's Sacred Hunger. This led to a rule requiring the prize to go to only one author or book.
James Kelman's How Late It Was, How Late won in 1994, causing controversy. A judge called the book "crap," and few copies were sold in the UK. The Guardian's literary editor criticized the prize for lacking clear criteria and excluding American authors.
In 1996, A. L. Kennedy, a judge, later said the prize was decided by personal connections and relationships.
In 1997, Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things sparked debate. A previous judge called the book "execrable" and said it should not have been shortlisted. The prize was awarded because no one objected to it.
In 1999, J. M. Coetzee became the first author to win the Booker Prize twice. He was one of four writers to win the prize twice, along with Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel, and Margaret Atwood.
Before 2001, the longlist of nominees was not made public. Starting in 2001, the longlist was published each year. In 2007, the number of nominees was limited to 12 or 13.
John Sutherland, a judge for the 1999 prize, said in 2001 that some writers, like Salman Rushdie, were not shortlisted because they criticized the literary community. He also noted that Martin Amis had never won the prize despite being a well-known writer.
The Booker Prize created a permanent archive at Oxford Brookes University Library. The archive includes materials from 1968 to the present, such as letters, publicity materials, longlists, shortlists, meeting minutes, photographs, and details about the awards dinner.
Judging
The process to choose the winner of the prize begins with the selection of a group of five judges, who change every year. Gaby Wood, the leader of the Booker Prize Foundation, picks the judges with help from an advisory group made up of important people in the UK publishing industry. Sometimes, a judge might be chosen again in the future. Judges are chosen from among top literary critics, writers, scholars, and well-known public figures.
Unlike other literary prizes, each judge must read all the books that are entered. In 2023, the judges read 163 books over seven months. After reading, they choose a longlist of 12 or 13 books (called the "Booker Dozen"). Then, they read those books again. Next, they pick a shortlist of six books and read them a third time before deciding on a winner.
The way the Booker Prize is judged, and the idea of a "best book" being chosen by a small group of literary experts, has caused debate. The Guardian created the "Not the Booker Prize," which is voted on by readers, partly because of this. Author Amit Chaudhuri said, "The idea that a 'book of the year' is judged each year by a group of people—judges who must read almost a book a day—is unreasonable, as is the idea that this honors a writer."
Author Julian Barnes once said the prize was like "posh bingo," a game of chance, because of the way winners are chosen. However, when he won the prize in 2011, he joked to reporters that he had changed his mind, saying, "I now realize the judges are the wisest people in literary Christendom."
For many years, the winner was announced at a formal, black-tie dinner in London's Guildhall in early October. In 2020, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the ceremony was broadcast in November from the Roundhouse, in partnership with the BBC. The event returned to the Roundhouse for a more casual in-person ceremony in 2022. In 2023 and 2024, the ceremony took place at Old Billingsgate in London.
Special awards
In 1971, the rules for the Booker Prize changed. Instead of awarding the prize to novels published the year before, it was given to books published in the same year. Because of this change, no novel published in 1970 could win the Booker Prize. This mistake was fixed in 2010 with the "Lost Man Booker Prize," which was given to J. G. Farrell's Troubles.
In 1993, a special prize called the "Booker of Bookers" was created to celebrate the prize's 25th anniversary. Three former judges—Malcolm Bradbury, David Holloway, and W. L. Webb—selected Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children, the 1981 winner, as "the best novel out of all the winners."
In 2006, the Man Booker Prize introduced the "Best of Beryl" prize for Beryl Bainbridge, an author who had been nominated five times but never won. This prize is considered part of the Booker Prize. The winning book was Master Georgie, while the other nominees included An Awfully Big Adventure, Every Man for Himself, The Bottle Factory Outing, and The Dressmaker.
In 2008, the "Best of the Booker" prize was awarded to celebrate the prize's 40th anniversary. A shortlist of six previous winners was chosen: Rushdie's Midnight's Children, Coetzee's Disgrace, Carey's Oscar and Lucinda, Gordimer's The Conservationist, Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, and Barker's The Ghost Road. A public vote decided the winner, which was again Midnight's Children.
In 2018, the "Golden Man Booker" prize was given to mark the 50th anniversary. A panel of judges selected one book from each decade: Naipaul's In a Free State (1971), Lively's Moon Tiger (1987), Ondaatje's The English Patient (1992), Mantel's Wolf Hall (2009), and Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo (2017). The winner, chosen by public vote, was The English Patient.
Nomination
Since 2014, the number of titles a publisher can submit depends on how many books they had on the longlist in the past. Publishers who were never longlisted before can submit one title. Publishers with one or two longlisted books in the last five years can submit two titles. Publishers with three or four longlisted books can submit three titles, and publishers with five or more longlisted books can submit four titles.
If a publisher has won the prize before and submits a new book, the judges will automatically consider it. Publishers can also write to the judges to ask them to consider other books besides the ones already submitted. In the 21st century, judges usually look at about 130 books.
Related awards
The Man Booker International Prize, a separate award open to any living writer worldwide, was started in 2005. Until 2015, it was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a collection of books published in English or available in English translation. In 2016, the rules changed. Now, the prize is given every year to a single book translated into English, with a £50,000 award split equally between the author and the translator. After the Man Group ended its involvement in 2019, the prize became known as the International Booker Prize.
A Russian version of the Booker Prize, called the Booker-Open Russia Literary Prize or the Russian Booker Prize, was created in 1992. In 2007, the Man Group established the Man Asian Literary Prize, an annual award for the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous year.
For many years, during The Times’ Literature Festival in Cheltenham, a Booker event took place on the last Saturday of the festival. Four guest speakers and judges debated a shortlist of four books from before the Booker Prize was introduced, selecting a winner. Unlike the original Booker Prize (1969–2014), this event considered writers not from the Commonwealth. In 2008, the winner for 1948 was Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country, chosen over Norman Mailer’s The Naked and the Dead, Graham Greene’s The Heart of the Matter, and Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One. In 2015, the winner for 1915 was Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier, selected over The Thirty-Nine Steps (John Buchan), Of Human Bondage (W. Somerset Maugham), Psmith, Journalist (P. G. Wodehouse), and The Voyage Out (Virginia Woolf).
In October 2025, the Booker Foundation announced the Children’s Booker Prize, supported by the AKO Foundation, for the best contemporary fiction for children aged 8–12. The first prize will be awarded in 2027 and given every year after that. Frank Cottrell-Boyce, who has served as Children’s Laureate since 2024, is the first chairperson of the jury.