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The Booker Prize 1972
Proof of the prize’s new high profile came when John Berger used his platform as winner to make things political and donated half his prize money to the British Black Panther movement
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Displaying 1901 - 1910 of 3015
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- Year
The Booker Prize 1973
JG Farrell followed John Berger’s attack on the sponsors by launching one of his own, using his winner’s speech to criticise Booker McConnell’s involvement in Third World agriculture.
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The Booker Prize 1974
The Booker Prize’s bugbear – the double win – raised its head for the first time when the award was split between Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist and Stanley Middleton’s Holiday.
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The Booker Prize 1975
Another year of controversy when after working their way through the 83 novels submitted the unimpressed judges decided that only two of them were worthy of shortlisting.
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The Booker Prize 1977
The chair of judges, Philip Larkin, threatened to jump out of a window if Paul Scott’s Staying On didn’t win. Luckily for literary history, Scott’s book triumphed and Larkin lived on.
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The Booker Prize 1978
A pipped shortlistee in three of the first five Booker Prizes, this was finally Iris Murdoch’s year. Surprise was lacking, however, when the winner’s name was leaked before the big reveal.
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The Booker Prize 1979
Penelope Fitzgerald’s win raised the perennial Booker Prize question: at what point does a novella become a novel? At 132 pages, Offshore remains the shortest winning book yet.
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The Booker Prize 1980
William Golding’s win was shaded by Anthony Burgess stating that he wouldn’t attend the ceremony unless he knew in advance that he had won. The judges refused to be swayed.
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The Booker Prize 1981
A book so good it won a Booker Prize three times. Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children went on to scoop the anniversary Booker of Bookers and The Best of the Booker prizes too.
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The Booker Prize 1982
The question posed by Thomas Keneally’s win was whether Schindler’s Ark was a proper work of fiction or an imaginative piece of non-fiction. Fiction said the judges, resoundingly.