The advisory panel of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction is in the process of setting up an award in addition to the £50,000 competition for the best British and Commonwealth novels of the year. The new award would be open to writers from the U.S. or any English-speaking country. According to the Booker panel, the new award will be given for a lifetime contribution to literature.
Speculation is already mounting as to which authors might be in the running for the prize, which is likely to be given every other year. Winners could include writers who have been repeatedly shortlisted for the Booker prize yet never won. Many admired writers have missed out on the award, including William Trevor, Martin Amis and Beryl Bainbridge, who has been shortlisted five times.
Works translated into English have not been ruled out for the prize, either, which would give an international Nobel-type cachet to the award.
The new sponsor of the 34-year-old prize, the Man Group of city fund managers, seems determined to create an air of suspense and novelty around the future development of the Booker prize.
