J.G. Farrell details the siege of a fictional town in India in 1857, when Muslim soldiers turned to bloody rebellion against their British overlords.
By J.G. Farrell
The Booker Prize 1973
Lord Butler presenting the 1973 Booker Prize to J.G. Farrell
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.
The sponsors must have been wondering what they had let themselves in for when Farrell, who won the prize for The Siege of Krishnapur, a brilliantly vivid novel set during the Indian Mutiny of 1857, took aim at them. Unlike Berger, however, Farrell deigned to keep the prize money for himself.
The prize doesn’t bear grudges and Farrell was to become a double winner when in 2010 Troubles won the Lost Man Booker Prize, retrospectively correcting a 1970/1 chronological glitch.
Winner The Booker Prize 1973
- By
- J.G. Farrell
- Published by
- Weidenfeld & Nicolson
J.G. Farrell details the siege of a fictional town in India in 1857, when Muslim soldiers turned to bloody rebellion against their British overlords.
The Shortlist
The mundane and the macabre collide in Beryl Bainbridge’s darkly comic tale about the shockingly unexpected consequences of a young girl’s heartbreak.
Elizabeth Mavor’s heroine - Hero - has an affair with the owner of a grand country estate, but her attentions then stray to the women in his life.
Iris Murdoch’s 15th novel is part-thriller, part-love story: a book that explores the intricacies and inconsistencies of human relationships.
By Iris Murdoch
