Photo: Booker Prize
It’s the Oscars of the writing world – winning the Booker Prize supercharges a writer’s career, immediately lifts sales, multiplies overseas deals and opens up opportunities all around the world. But what does this kind of superstardom feel like for the writer on the inside? Three Booker Prize winners, Eleanor Catton, Bernardine Evaristo and Shehan Karunatilaka share their experience of being awarded the world’s most esteemed literary prize with broadcaster and author Karyn Hay.
Shehan Karunatilaka:
All awards – Oscars, Grammies, Baftas, Emmies – are all bullshit, until you win one. Then, maybe the Booker is as well, but this year the judges got it right. Up until October I worked in advertising, and if my next book flops I’ll be back working in advertising, and I think there’s no industry more obsessed with awards. You do your normal day-to-day work for these brands, but then you do these scammy little awards. This happened a lot in the ‘90s. You had these scam things [involving] winning at Cannes, and all of that.
And you had all these old-school creative directors saying “That’s all nonsense. Advertising is about the real work.” Until they win an award. When they win the award, it’s in the newspapers, and they put Cannes-winning agency presents and all of that.
The thing is, these [awards] are flawed. There’s plenty of examples of that. Hitchcock never won for best director. The Beatles won one Grammy, but Post Malone has fifteen. There are many [such] examples.
But the Booker does have meaning. Even being on a long list, a short list, and obviously – winning.
About the speakers
Eleanor Catton Photo: Supplied
Eleanor Catton
Eleanor Catton’s latest novel Birnam Wood, follows her Booker Prize-winning epic The Luminaries, and her award-winning debut, The Rehearsal. As a screenwriter she adapted The Luminaries for television, and Jane Austen’s Emma for feature film. Born in Canada, she grew up in Aotearoa New Zealand and now lives in the UK.
Photo: supplied
Bernardine Evaristo
Bernardine Evaristo won the Booker Prize 2019 with her eighth book, Girl, Woman, Other, the first black woman and black British person to win it. The novel was a number one Sunday Times bestseller for 5 weeks, selling ver a million copies worldwide. In 2021, she published a memoir, Manifesto: On Never Giving Up. Bernadine is an arts activist, Professor of Creative Writing at Brunel University London, and President of the Royal Society of Literature.
Man Booker prize winner Shehan Karunatilaka Photo: Dominic Sansoni
Shehan Karunatilaka
Shehan Karunatilaka won the 2022 Booker Prize with The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida. His debut novel, Chinaman won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSL and Gratiaen Prize, and his songs, scripts and stories have been published in Rolling Stone, GQ and National Geographic.
This session is broadcast thanks to the generous help of the Auckland Writers Festival held in May 2023
Photo: Auckland Writers Festival
