Who'll Win the Booker?

This is the time of year when the murmur and rumors begin. Who will win the Booker? The coveted prize that means millions of copies of sales for the winner, even the short-listed books get hefty boosts from this literary world's "prestigious" award. Last year it was Anita Desai's exquisite The Inheritance of Loss grabbed it, many years ago, it seems, Yann Martel won for his splendid Life of Pi. Margaret Atwood had won it for her unforgettable Blind Assassin, a story to remember like her another classic Oryx and Crake published a few years later. Ian McEwan got it not for "Atonement", arguably his best work of fiction, but he had won for Amsterdam, though in my humble opinion both Saturday and Atonement were finer novels. Alice Munro had never won it since her arena is in short stories. John Banville had won it for his The Sea though for many his "Shroud" was his best to this date. No one talks about Arundhati Roy's God of Small Things anymore that won the heart and soul of readers so many years ago. Perhaps she has devoted her literary talents in expanding the meaning of Algebra of Infinite Injustice and other social causes that require more urgent attentions, but her fans do surely miss a great writer who has pretty much disappeared from the literary scene it seems.

Read the following article published in The Wall Street Journal, though many of its "judgments" on current short-listed Booker books I do not agree with.

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Who'll Win the Booker?