The shortest novel to win the Booker Prize, Penelope Fitzgerald offers a delightful glimpse into the workings of the eccentric London community living on houseboats on Battersea Reach.
The Booker Prize 1979
Penelope Fitzgerald, Michael Caine (centre) and Fay Weldon
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.
V.S. Naipaul’s A Bend In the River and William Golding’s Darkness Visible had been the fancied novels so victory for a slim but elegant tale of middle-class chatterers on a Battersea houseboat came as a shock. One of the judges, Hilary Spurling, later revealed that Golding had most votes but she put her foot down for Naipaul, ‘So we compromised by giving the prize to everybody’s second choice.’
Spurling also claimed that the general amazement at the result caused Fitzgerald ‘pain… and humiliation ever after’.
Winner The Booker Prize 1979
- By
- Penelope Fitzgerald
- Published by
- Collins
The shortest novel to win the Booker Prize, Penelope Fitzgerald offers a delightful glimpse into the workings of the eccentric London community living on houseboats on Battersea Reach.
The shortlist
Thomas Keneally’s compelling historical drama about the American Civil War brings to life one of the most emotive episodes in American history.
One of V.S. Naipul’s best-known works, this account of chaos and corruption in post-colonial Africa evokes echoes of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness.
Joseph - Julian Rathbone’s highly unreliable early 19th-century narrator - tells the story of his poignant, comic and richly entertaining life.
Fay Weldon’s thought-provoking portrayal of the shifting roles and personalities of one woman as she journeys from childhood to adulthood.
By Fay Weldon
The 1979 judges
Penelope Fitzgerald 1979
1979 Booker Prize. Penelope Fitzgerald receives a cheque for £10,000 and a special leather bound copy of her book from Michael Caine, chairman and Chief Executive of Booker McConnell
© LPA International Photo Services / Oxford Brookes Library
Winner Penelope Fitzgerald interviewed by a television crew at the Booker Prize award ceremony, 23 October 1979
© LPA International Photo Services / Oxford Brookes Library
Booker Prize awards 23 Oct 1979: Penelope Fitzgerald, Michael Caine (centre) and Fay Weldon
© LPA International Photo Services / Oxford Brookes Library