Bar American Writers From Man Booker Prize, British Authors Urge Photo George Saunders, who won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for “Lincoln in the Bardo,” was the second consecutive American to receive the award. The eligibility rules were changed in 2014. Credit Chris Jackson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images LONDON — The Man Booker Prize is Britain’s most prestigious literary award. But for the past two years, American writers have dominated the competition — and authors from Britain and the Commonwealth countries are none too pleased.
The crescendo of frustration may have reached a peak. A group that counts the literary heavyweights Margaret Atwood, Ian McEwan and Zadie Smith among its members has fired a shot across the bow, demanding that the Man Booker Foundation reverse a 2014 decision making any novel written in English and published in Britain eligible for the prize.
Leading authors and critics from the group, the Rathbones Folio Academy, bashed the Booker’s policy anew this week..