The Booker award was established in 1968 by a multinational company by the name of Booker McConnell. Its initial aim was to provide a counterpart to the Prix Goncourt in France. During the initial years, the English language writers, representing the United Kingdom, the republic of Ireland and the countries coming under the purview of the British Commonwealth were eligible to apply for the prize. But from the year 2014 onwards, the Booker Prize was made available for the English language writers coming from around the world as well. Until the year 2002, the Book Trust administered the prize.
Booker Russian prize
The Booker Russian novel prize was established in the year 1992 and the aim of which was to encourage, reward and honour the contemporary Russian authors with regard to the composition of modern Russian fiction while giving them ample space for translations and publications outside Russian soil. In the year 1999, the Russian prize was set apart from other Booker prizes when several Russian companies took over the task of offering the sponsorship for the prize.
In the year 2005, the Biennial Man Booker International Prize was setup in the form of a lifetime achievement award. The Booker prize is a high profile literary award which is regarded with enormous anticipation, sensationalism and splendour.
The English writers, as noted by literary critics, declare that getting selected for inclusion in the shortlist or to get nominated for the long list is a breakthrough which any English language writer may experience in their selected field of writing. It is certainly treated as a mark of respect and acclaim for writers.
The original prize was £21,000. Subsequently, the amount increased to £50,000 in the year 2002, under the sponsorship of the Man group which made it to be one of the richest literary prizes awarded in the world.
Archives
A permanent home for the archives from the year 1968 to the present at Oxford Brookes University Library was created by the Booker prize. A wide range of materials which include publicity material, correspondence, the copies of the long lists and the short lists, photographs, the minutes of the meetings as well as the letters of invitations, seating plans and guest lists for the dinner are collected by the archive that girdles the administrative history of the prize from the year 1968 to date. Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie and Michael Ondaatje are three very popular, prominent and celebrated English language writers in the Asian region who won the Booker prize for their ‘The god of small things’, ‘Midnight’s Children’ and ‘The English patient’ respectively.