The Bookseller.com

4th July 2009

Jamie Byng is publisher of Edinburgh-based Canongate.

Bothered by the Booker

30.07.08

Canongate publisher Jamie Byng made his thoughts on this year's Man Booker Prize longlist known on the prize's website yesterday. Following are his comments in full:

Tuesday, 31st July

I think some excellent books are on the longlist. My favourites are the Rushdie and Sebastian Barry and Steve Toltz novels, all of which I think are superb books that deserve wider audiences and I think bits of Netherland are breathtakingly beautiful and that this is a very interesting novel too.

But I cannot respect a judging committee that decides to pick a book like Child 44, a fairly well-written and well-paced thriller that is no more than that, over novels as exceptional as Helen Garner's The Spare Room or Ross Raisin's God's Own Country.

I will declare my bias - as the publisher at Canongate I had a vested interest in seeing The Spare Room make the shortlist. But from an objective point of view this novel has been as well-reviewed as any book Canongate has ever published (including Life of Pi, The Crimson Petal and the White, The Secret River, Lanark, The People's Act of Love and Carry Me Down.) As well as the book getting exceptional reviews, I received remarkable and heartfelt responses from a whole array of other novelists about the book pre-publication including Peter Carey ("The Spare Room is a perfect novel"), Hilary Mantel, John Banville, Alberto Manguel, Diana Athill and Michel Faber, any one of whom I would respect as a judge of serious fiction more than all five of these judges put together.

One has to be philosophical about these things and as a publisher particularly so as you come to realise what a lottery these prizes are. Rilke once wrote, "Nothing affects a book as little as words of criticism" and regardless of what a panel decides the book is the book and time will tell which of these books are still being read in ten years time.

I am certain that The Spare Room is a modern classic that will continue to be read and enjoyed and appreciated long after all of us are dead.

Wednesday, 30th July

I was a little astonished myself to open today's bulletin from The Bookseller and to learn that I had "launched an astonishing attack on the Man Booker Prize judges". What's astonishing is that my reasonably innocent (and I would say toned down!) comments could be blown out of proportion in this way. I mean for christ's sake. Let's please not get carried away.

As I wrote yesterday I think that there are some excellent books on the longlist. My post was written in the heat of the moment, having just learned that Helen Garner's The Spare Room had not made the longlist of a literary prize that claims to celebrate and champion "fiction at its finest". And of course my personal interest in this book as its publisher, which I declared up front, only added to my frustration at it being overlooked.

Thankfully this judging panel IS in a minority in not recognising the many qualities of The Spare Room which is unquestionably one of the most highly praised novels of the year.

Our hbk edition of the book has already had to reprint, the novel has been a big bestseller in Helen's native Australia and it has now sold into twenty other territories around the world and to some of the most prestigious literary lists there are.

If I had a regret it was dismissing the judges in quite the way that I did but the trouble is I think the credibility of the panel is completely undermined by its decision to include a book like Child 44. We read this novel when it was on submission and chose not to offer. I thought I was fair in describing it the way that I did. But the idea that this novel could be determined to be a finer piece of fiction than The Spare Room is, I think, ludicrous. And many other people feel this.

The subjectivity of reading is of course enormous and different books do different things to different people. That is part of their elusive, personalised joy. I happen to think that The Spare Room is a great book, a wise and beautifully written gem that has an exceptional vitality and I am certain that it will be read and appreciated long after some of the books on this longlist are forgotten.

Yesterday also reminded me of my complete dismay in 2006 when Kate Grenville's The Secret River didn't make the longlist of 20 titles for that year's Orange Prize. I was gobsmacked and my feelings about that judging panel were similar.

By what yardstick did they judge the novel? But then The Secret River went on to win the Commonwealth Writers Prize that year and get shortlisted for the Booker and became a great success (fyi - Kate has just delivered an outstanding new novel called The Lieutenant which we will publish next march). You win some, you lose some and you just have to accept this. But I also feel entitled to voice my disgust at a decision.

Two of the judges happen to be friends (or they were!) and I do also appreciate that taking part in these judging panels puts one in an invidious position. It's impossible to make everyone happy. But I think time will tell that this year they simply got it wrong in dismissing The Spare Room.

And please read God's Own Country by Ross Raisin. It's a remarkable debut. And I hope that either the Toltz or the Barry go onto win it. Both are great and by writers who really deserve wider recognition and audiences.

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