Booker Prize Panel Is Said to Consider Allowing Americans to Be Eligible

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Julie Bosman

UNITED KINGDOM---For more than four decades, the Man Booker Prize for Fiction has been a uniquely British award, seeking to identify the best novel by authors from Ireland and the Commonwealth. Now that distinction may end. The prize committee will break with tradition and allow American authors to be eligible, beginning next year, The Sunday Times in London reported. It will include Americans because the Booker committee “believes U.S. writers must be allowed to compete to ensure the award’s global reputation,” The Times said. The winner of this year’s Booker will be announced at a ceremony in London on Oct. 15. [link]