The literary award decided by Guardian readers is celebrating its 10th birthday – and now it’s down to you to choose the contenders
The Not the Booker prize is back. Again! When we started back in 2009, the world was a different place – one Gordon Brown was prime minister and a TV host called Donald Trump had just endorsed Hillary Clinton to be president of the US.
Over the last 10 years we’ve done some fine work – or, I should say, you’ve done some fine work. It’s your nominations, suggestions and votes that have made this prize over the past decade. We’ve had some fiery and important discussions about the nature of art and prizes and judgments. We’ve also been able to bring attention to some excellent books – bask in the glow of our past winners:
Alongside that excellent list we’ve also been able to bring attention to books by Benjamin Myers, Meike Ziervogel, Lars Iyer, Paul McVeigh, Jenn Ashworth, MJ Hyland, Mahesh Rao, Alex Preston, Jemma Wayne, Harriet Paige, Stephen May, Simon Crump and Julian Gough – to name just a few. These writers, and plenty of others who have taken part in the competition, have won prizes, sold books all over the world and helped build our shared literary culture.
Now it’s time to harvest another crop of talented writers. As usual, you can put forward any book eligible for this year’s Man Booker prize (PDF): it has to be a novel, first written in English and published in the UK or Ireland by a UK or Ireland publisher between 1 October 2017 and 30 September 2018. (US authors are still allowed.) All you need to do is to post a comment naming the book and author below the line, alongside the word “nomination”. We’ll be grateful if you can also name the publisher – and feel free to say why you like the book. Do also remember that at this stage we only need one nomination per title.
Once those nominations are in, we’ll compile our traditionally very long longlist and run a public vote to whittle those books down to five. That’s right: five. Like last year, we will then add a wildcard entry nominated by the excellent judges who helped us to choose the 2017 winner.
When we’ve got those six books lined up, we’ll read each in turn at the rate of around about one a week, igniting further discussion, debate and – let’s hope – admiration and love. Then there’s the final vote, the judges’ panel and the beautiful moment when we get to bestow an actual Guardian mug on the lucky winner.
If you’d like to find out more details about the process, all ye need know is contained in our beautiful and truthful terms and conditions. And if you’d like to contribute a little more than your valued wisdom below the line, we’d love to hear from you about joining this year’s judging panel.
The Not the Booker has always been about uncovering new talent, about finding voices ignored by the mainstream and I’m hoping for another excellent competition. It’s also about fun (even if it can occasionally be a fairly bruising process). So let’s get ready to enjoy another year. Here we go!
To nominate a book for the 2018 Not the Booker prize please leave a comment below, including the word “nomination”, with the title and author of one book you think should be considered. If you can supply a publication date and the UK publisher, that would be very useful. Nominations will remain open until 23.59 BST on Sunday 29 July.
Source: Guardian.com
