They include three Nigerian authors, Bernardine Evaristo for her eighth book “Girl, Woman, Other,” Chigozie Obioma for his second novel “An Orchestra of Minorities,” and Oyinkan Braithwaite’s “My Sister, the Serial Killer.”
This longlist was later shortened to six books before the winner was announced on October 14, 2019. British-Nigerian Evaristo emerged as the winner of this year’s award along with famous Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood for “The Testament, the sequel to the classic “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Atwood has become the fourth novelist to win the prize twice while Evaristo sets the record as the first black woman and the first Black British author to receive this honour.
“What, then, does it mean to not see yourself reflected in your nation’s stories? This has been the ongoing debate of my professional career as a writer stretching back nearly 40 years, and we black British women know, that if we don’t write ourselves into literature, no one else will,” Evaristo told The Guardian about the importance of race and representation.
Evaristo is now the second Nigerian to get this prize after Ben Okri won the same award for “The Famished Road” back in 1991. The prize money, £50,000 (N22.65 million), will be split equally between the two winners.
Backlash follows this year's winners
The judges’ decision to split the award between the first black female winner, Evaristo, and Atwood, a previous winner, is causing a major stir in the literary world.
Commenting on the controversial decision, an anonymous former Booker judge said they felt it was a “huge disappointment that the chance to make history emphatically was passed by”.
Sam Leith, another former Booker judge, wrote an essay calling the decision to split the prize an “epic fail”, which sets “a rotten, rotten precedent” and is “unfair on both authors”.
Booker judge Afua Hirsch has defended this decision saying, “The outcome would always be imperfect because it was an impossible task. I’m proud of our decision. I’ve heard people complain that we didn’t give it to Atwood alone, or Evaristo alone. I’ve seen plenty of people question how you can ever compare the two. You can’t compare them. But you can recognise them both. And I’m glad that this is what we did.”
Both winners have responded graciously to the criticism with Atwood telling Evaristo, “I kind of don’t need the attention, so I am very glad that you’re getting some.”
“What do you think? Yes, but I’m happy to share it. That’s the kind of person I am,” Evaristo stated.
