She beat the bookies, who put her fifth out of six in the award shortlist, rating her as a 5/1 outsider against odds of 6-4 on Sarah Waters' The Night Watch, the favourite.
And at her first attempt Desai, 37, not only became the youngest woman to win but achieved a victory which repeatedly eluded her mother. The esteemed Indian novelist Anita Desai - to whom The Inheritance of Loss is dedicated - has been shortlisted for the prize three times.
This year's head judge, Hermione Lee, left no doubt that it was "the strength of the book's humanity" which gave it the edge after a long and passionate debate among the panel. "It is a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness, " Professor Lee said. "Her mother will be proud of her".
John Sutherland, chairman of last year's Man Booker judges and author of How to Read a Novel, said: "Desai's novel registers the multicultural reverberations of the new millennium, with the sensitive instrumentality of fiction, as Jhabvala and Rushdie did in previous eras.
"The setting moves between the Himalayas and the skyscrapers of New York - and it wins Britain's premier fiction prize. It is a globalised novel for a globalised world."
Rodney Troubridge, buyer for the bookshop chain Waterstone's, said, "This continues the fine tradition of Booker winners set in India, such as Heat and Dust, Staying On, The God of Small Things, and Midnight's Children.
"This wonderful novel will be snapped up by our customers - it's a great winner." Announcing the longlist of 19 books on August 14, Prof Lee said: "It's a list in which famous established novelists rub shoulders with little-known newcomers."
On September 14, when the shortlist of six titles was unveiled, it became evident that Prof Lee and her fellow judges had done something rare in the 38-year annals of the Booker: they had dumped the famous established writers and mainly picked the little-known newcomers.
Hisham Matar (with his first novel), Desai and MJ Hyland (also with a second novel) sprang from almost nowhere to be contenders for the world's foremost literary award. Also on the shortlist was Kate Grenville for The Secret River and Edward St Aubyn for Mother's Milk.
Out went Peter Carey, a double Booker laureate, his chance of a third title for Theft: A Love Story capsized. Discarded, too, was the bookshops' and bookmakers' favourite David Mitchell, with his fourth novel Black Swan Green. Mitchell has been expected to win a Booker or Whitbread prize since his quirkily dazzling second novel Number9dream was shortlisted for the Booker in 2002.
But the current book prize and publishing markets increasingly treat novelists as promotable contenders with their first and second books, mature talents by their third, and possibly old hat, no longer fashionable or burnt out, with their fourth and subsequent titles. After winning this year's Orange prize for her third novel, On Beauty, Zadie Smith, built up for six years as an ultra-celebrity, said at the age of 31 she felt she had no inspiration left for a next book.
Among other well-thought of and, in some cases, strongly tipped novelists who fell in this authorial night of the long knives were the veterans Nadine Gordimer with her story Get a Life and Howard Jacobson with Kalooki Nights; James Lasdun with Seven Lies; Jon McGregor - in previous years considered a brilliant newcomer - with So Many Ways to Begin; Claire Messud with The Emperor's Children; Andrew O'Hagan with Be Near Me; and Barry Unsworth, once a joint winner of the award, with The Ruby in her Navel.
After the initial surprise, few of those who have read all the titles disagree that the newcomers Matar, Desai and Hyland were well-merited choices. The question left by the contest is whether new talent is in danger of being overmarketed and overexposed too soon.
Aside from Prof Lee, Goldsmiths' professor of English literature and Fellow of New College, Oxford, the judging panel was Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, novelist and former winner of the Guardian fiction prize; the critic Anthony Quinn; and the actor Fiona Shaw.
[Here's on Amazon]
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário