A Long Lost Literary Prize: Announcing the 1970 Man Booker Competition

Imagine for a minute that it's 2050. You're sitting at home, long since retired, when you're roused from your nap by a knock at the door. The visitor announces that you are being given an award for something you did at work 40 years ago, something you did, for the sake of argument, today, February 1, 2010. Your company, the person explains, had missed giving out its annual achievement award that year, and the management has decided to make up for it now.

It may sound absurd, but that actually is the situation for a collection of authors who have been named today to the longlist for the "Lost Man Booker Prize," which is the Booker Prize in literature for the year 1970.

The Man Booker Prize is awarded to what a panel of judges deem to be the best new book each year. Because of some changes to the award in 1971, including switching from a retrospective to a contemporary prize and changing the prize-giving from April to November, the prize was never given in 1970. All the novels published that year simply never had a chance to compete.

At long last, then, the longlist taps 22 authors for consideration for a shortlist of six, which will be announced in March. The public from around the world will vote on the Man Booker Prize website to judge the final winner, who will be announced in May.

"Our longlist demonstrates that 1970 was a remarkable year for fiction written in English," said Ion Trewin, literary director of the Man Booker Prizes. "Recognition for these novels and the eventual winner is long overdue."

I should certainly say so.

Photo courtesy of stock.xchng