Booker Prize 2013

the UK, behind it should turn a lot clearer. That is it. Hello and

welcome to the magnificent Guildhall in the city of London where we await

the announcement of the winner of one of the worlds leading literary

prizes, the Man Booker. It has been quite a journey to get to this

point. 151 books were whittled down to a short list of six and tonight

there will just be one book, one winner. All six of the short listed

authors are here tonight. It must be nerve wracking to hear whether you

have one. It is a landmark moment for the price. After 45 years, the

rules are changing. From next year, anyone writing a novel in English

anywhere in the world will be eligible and that means the

Americans are coming. For the first time we have a royal guest, her

Royal Highness the Duchess of Cornwall will be here and she will

present the trophy to the winner. To help guide us through the

proceedings I am joined by two guess, so Peter Studdard and Gaby

Wood. Thank you both for being with us. Really looking forward to

talking to you, but before we do, let's remind ourselves who is on

this year's short list. We need new names by NoViolet

Bulawayo you. A very diverse short list both in

terms of the subjects covered but also the nationalities and

backgrounds of the authors. Peter, is it a strong year, do you think?

It is a wonderful tribute to the hand of a book in Iraq. This is a

Commonwealth prize with an amazing range of prose in different styles

and next year the Americans will be there. The old Booker Prize has

shown some of the best of what it can offer. You have written this

short list are brought a tear to your eye. Was that joy or sorrow? I

found it incredibly invigorating! Including the global span of the

authors. Let's talk in details about each of the books. Let's talk about

Jim Crace's book. This is a book about dispossessed peasants forced

from their homes as changes sweep across the English countryside. Is

he a deserved favourite? Yes, it is also said it will be his last book.

That is always a good move! What did you think of the book? It was

excellent. It seems to be said in the 16th century but also it spans a

lot more time and the nature of dispossession is his real interest.

More modern versions of that are our relationship to the lands, approach

patients, deaths. The other established writer on the short

lists is comatose bin. This is the first time he has been short list.

`` comb the most raking thing is its

length, it is only 101 pages. Should it be longer? Know, if you are

writing about the virgin Mary you can rely on the fact that people

know about the back story. He is such an extraordinary prose writer.

Every word he uses, there are five words behind it. He is the virtuoso

of prose. He is the greatest writer in this hall. This is a virtuoso

performance. The virtuosity, subversives those are powerful

elements in a Man Booker book. He got the biggest cheer when he came

up tonight. He did. Gaby, the other extreme is a Eleanor Catton's book

which is 832 pages. This is a Victorian murder mystery set during

the gold rush in New Zealand and the obvious question is is it worth its

length? Is it worth reading it at that length? It certainly is worth

it. It is a gripping read, you do not notice it is 832 pages long and

also it is packaged in this experimental framework which

disappears as soon as you start. There was something misleading when

you call it an experimental novel. I think if this were to win it would

be the boldest move. What about NoViolet Bulawayo. She would be the

first black African woman to win. It is the story of a ten`year`old girl

who grows up in a shantytown in Zimbabwe who then moves to America.

I love the first part of the book. Eleanor Catton is a miracle of...

NoViolet Bulawayo is more observation of what you see in front

of you and the first 30 pages and the way she uses names to grip

reality and when the reality changes she changes the names. They use

names from American TV shows, American magazines and that is

something Zimbabweans do. It is accurately observed, very vivid but

it is nothing like the art of Eleanor Catton's book. What about

Jhumpa Lahiri's book? Did you enjoy that book? I did. It is fascinating

on her part to have written a book with such a span over time when she

started out and continues to be a short story writer of incredible

precision and beauty. And finally Ruth Ozeki's tale which intertwines

the tale of two women, a Canadian writer who finds a diary washed up

on a beach which was written by a teenager in Tokyo. The opening part

of that is wonderful. Fiction is all about voices and those are two great

ones. The adult voice is less secure for me and the intellectual

underpinning was a lot more frail but then I am not a Zen Buddhist and

she is. As I said, there is a special guest here this evening, the

Duchess of Cornwall and she got up and made a speech earlier on. She

described herself as a passionate reader and she talked about a

literacy project in Middlesbrough which is run by the Booker Prize

foundation. As patron of the National literacy trust, I visited

the UK's first literacy action hub in Middlesbrough. An area wearing

the brunt of the economic decline. This ground`breaking project is

addressing some of the worst literacy problems in the country by

bringing people together from all parts of the community, including

local government, business and charities to create a major campaign

to get Middlesbrough reading. The project already has had a huge

impact and its success would not have been possible without the vital

funding from the Booker Prize foundation. Before the dinner that

is taking place behind me, there is a champagne reception for the 500

guests here and we caught up with some of them to find out what they

think of this year's short list and who they think will win. I would

think in this case Ruth Ozeki. Simply because the one thing about

her book is it heralds the advent of a fantastic writer. She will win it.

I don't have the slightest doubt. They're right two writers on this

list, Tim Krays `` Jim Crace and Colm Toibin. Either one of them I

would like to see win this prize. If you feel hungry for a sequel, that

is the mark of a good book. The views of some of the guests who are

here with us this evening. We're waiting for the formal part of the

evening to start, so while we do wait I will put you both on the

spot. Gaby, who do you think will win? Colm Toibin or Eleanor Catton.

Eleanor Catton or NoViolet Bulawayo. We shall see if you are right. I

will now hand you over to the chairman of the judges, Robert

Macfarlane. Good evening to you all. Ladies and gentlemen, feedback,

forgive me. It has been a long path to this point. We began our work in

November last year. It took us nine months to read 151 novels. I am a

walker, fond of walking and so I am also fond of quantifying tasks in

terms of distance so my maths tells me we read around 20 kilometres of

prose as measured in 12 point gap bond. It was an exhausting and

fascinating journey. Along the way we met missionaries, scientists,

priests, G hard disk, mothers, , many murderers and almost all of

them had fancy prose styles. We read sci`fi, spy fly, detective fiction,

gumshoe, screwball, we passed through landscapes of great

strangeness, we were by turns amazed, saddened, board, very

bored, confided in and betrayed. The very best books we read reminded us

of the peculiar powers of the novel as a form. To examine the workings

of memory and the makings of thought and to use the postulate to repower

what of fiction to illuminate, criticise all the pattern what we

consider to be the real. The novel has knowledge as its only morality

as a form. I think that means true novels discover only what the novel

can. Not the TV series, newspaper column, historical essay. To survive

and thrive the novel must continue to discover what only the novel can

discover. Before I turn to that short list I give thanks to...

Thank you to Scott, Amy, Lucy and others who have been models of

imaginative visions. We have been generously supported throughout by

various people and I am grateful above all to my fellow judges, in

whom I have been staggeringly fortunate. They have worked with and

integrity and a diligence. APPLAUSE thank you.

I haven't even finished my list. They are all virtues. Critical

acuity as well. They have been faultless. We also laughed a lot as

well. Now to our winner so why take the novels in alphabetical level of

offer. The only debut novel Honours list is We Need New Names. The book

tells the tale of a girl going to a promised land and each chapter

filled with you fresh adventure in line was. Its violence and honesty

should cos. The Luminaries is set in the New Zealand gold rush started

slowly but deeply staked its claim upon us. It is animated by this

weird struggle between compulsion and perversion. Men and women

proceed according to their fixed fates while gold around, as will ``

bouillon and bars, makes his way. It is intricately structured. It

requires a huge investment of time from the reader. The dividend is it

offers are asking uncle. Harvest was among the very first novels we read.

It continued to wander through the many months of routing that

followed. It told us, that the term memories and all sorts of ways. ``

many months of reading. It is set in a English village and is an

locatable in space and time. It is area and infuses easy allegiance to

allegory and parable. It is disturbing at the level of form and

dazzling at the level of sentence. The Lowland is seismological in that

it is concerned with the tremors and after`shocks of a dramatic event

that is at its core. It is a novel about distance and separation but

also about the impossibility of leaving cert signs of past behind,

however far you move. `` certain times. Its patience was admirable

and it works by gathering a terrible sadness over its line. A Deal For A

Time Being if the turbulent story of two parts. It is preoccupied with

simultaneity is and in keeping with the quantum physics, it is tender

and refined, comic and brave, hopeful and desperate. We loved it

spirit in several senses. We are all Hello Kitty fans now. Lastly, The

Testament Of Mild. This is a fiercely compassionate novel about a

mother's levels of love for her sun. `` of movie. It is barely 100 pages

long `` the Testament of male. Its story is ancient. Radicalisation,

authoritarianism, who would have thought that was the oldest and

best`known of the world's stories could have been made modern this

manner? These are six extraordinary novels. It has been a huge pleasure

to us to watch the reception of the short list worldwide, the claim that

the books have already received. It has not been easy to choose a

winner. Of course, we have done so. And the winner of the 2013 man

Booker Prize for fiction is the Luminaries.

Thank you. When I began writing The Luminaries, I was very much in the

thrall of a wonderful book The Gift, as I still am. In his conception of

the creative enterprise is explored in that book, it was very important

to me in how I came to understand the West Coast of the South Island

of New Zealand during the years of the gold rush. The region is which

in two very different minerals, gold, prized by Europeans for its

value, and Greenstone, prized by the natives for its worth. Gold being

pure currency can only be bought and sold. Greenstone is a symbol of

belonging and prestige and can only be given. An economy based on value

in Lewis Hyde's conception is not necessarily inferior to an economy

based on worth. But they too must somehow be weak and filed in the

life of an artist who wishes to make a living by his or her gift. By his

or her art. On the West Coast, this intersection of economies has a

national significance, speaking as it does to New Zealand's essentially

bicultural part. `` bicultural heart. I am very aware of the

blushing's pressures to make money and remain competitive. I know that

it is now small thing that my primary publishers, here in London,

and in New Zealand, never once made these pressures known to me while I

was writing this book. `` of the publishing pressures. I was free to

concern myself with questions not of value but of worth. This is all the

more incredible to me because The cup luminaries `` the luminaries was

a nightmare, not only mathematically impossible but astrologically

impossible by suggestions. A very sensible e`mail from one of my two

editors, Sarah Holloway or Max Porter, might have even turned the

very annoying and not at all sensible reply, well, you would

think that, being a Virgo. I am extraordinarily fortunate in having

found a home at these publishing houses and to have found friends and

colleagues and people who have managed to strike an elegant balance

between making art and making money. To everybody at my publishing

houses, thank you. I would also like to make some very brief but Hartford

individual thanks to my editors, Sarah Holloway and Marks Porter,

whose influence on the boot has been conspiratorially, rigorous and for

me incredibly sustaining. `` Mark Porter, on the book. To those who

were kind enough to take a chance on me. To my dear agent, in whom I

trust completely. I must also thank my beloved Steve to solvent, whose

kindness, patience and love is written on every page of my book. ``

Steve Tucson. I would also like to thank those who considered my work,

alongside the other incredibly important writers. And also for

providing the value and the worth jointly of this extraordinary prize.

Thank you. The winner of the 2013 Booker Prize

with Herbert The Luminaries. You both tipped her, a bold choice but a

good one. Docs about the light, it is a book, this is a book of the

great artifice and we'll test a lot of people but well worth the test.

It's just heavy, not difficult. No need to lug around! We are so

grateful. Thank you for breaking off from your dinner to talk to us.

There you have it, as I say, the winner of the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

She has become the youngest person, at the age of 28, ever to win the

prize. From all of us here at the Guildhall, many thanks for watching.

Good night. We had plenty of fine weather today,

particularly across the south`west. Tomorrow, different story with that

rain on the way. It will reach Cornwall at the time we get to

midnight. That claim is going to continue to make its journey towards

the north`east. Before that happens, eastern areas will turn quite foggy

`` that rain. Anywhere from the south east, the East Midlands and

Yorkshire, the sailors could turn very foggy indeed. Steady on the

roads. That Bob is going to clear away quite quickly throughout the

morning because the rain will arrive and also the breeze is going to pick

up. It is going to wash all of that for