John Berger’s decision to give away half of his £5,000 prize money in 1972 was one of the Booker’s most controversial moments. In this speech, delivered at the Café Royal in London after being announced as the winner, he set out the reasons behind his actions
John Berger
John Berger was born in London and educated at St Edward's School, Oxford. In 1962, he left Britain permanently, to live in a small village in the French Alps
Berger began his career as a painter in the late 1940s. As well as being a novelist, he was also a broadcaster, philosopher, playwright, art critic, poet and self-styled ‘revolutionary writer’. Berger was the author of acclaimed works of fiction and non-fiction, including the seminal Ways of Seeing (also a BBC television series) and the experimental novel G., which won the Booker Prize in 1972. Married three times, he died in 2017 at the age of 90.
G.
Winner of The Booker Prize 1972
- By
- John Berger
- Published by
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson
John Berger relates the story of ‘G’., a young man forging an energetic sexual career in Europe during the early years of the twentieth century
Other nominated books
John Berger imagines a besieged community that finds transcendent hope in the pain and fragility, vulnerability and sorrow of daily existence
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