Richard Flanagan wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction
Richard Flanagan won the £50,000 (US$80,362) Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Narrow Road to the Deep North. The Tasmanian-born author is the third Australian to win the award.
Chair of judges A.C. Grayling commented: "The two great themes from the origin of literature are love and war: this is a magnificent novel of love and war. Written in prose of extraordinary elegance and force, it bridges East and West, past and present, with a story of guilt and heroism. This is the book that Richard Flanagan was born to write."
Noting that this was "the first year that the Man Booker Prize had been open to all authors writing in English, regardless of nationality," BBC News wrote: "Some writers had expressed fears that the change in the rules could lead to dominance by U.S. authors." American writers Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour) and Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves) made the Booker shortlist.
"In Australia the Man Booker is sometimes seen as something of a chicken raffle," Flanagan said. "I just didn't expect to end up the chicken."