It is the most reputed and sought after literary award that has been instrumental in the rise of several leading authors as well as in boosting the sales of the nominated and winning novels but the Booker Prize never really manages to avoid controversies.
In a fresh scoop, novelist and academic Matthew Sperling posted an image from an unnamed bookshop of Margaret Atwood¡¯s ¡°The Testaments¡± on Twitter. The picture was alongside Lucy Ellmann¡¯s ¡°Ducks, Newburyport¡± with a sticker that highlighted its shortlisting.?
But ¡°The Testaments¡± instead carried a sticker that branded it as the winner.?
¡°Don¡¯t think you were supposed to use those stickers yet, lads...¡± wrote Sperling in the post that has now been deleted.?
Margaret Atwood is shortlisted for ¡°The Testaments¡±, the sequel to her 1986 Booker Prize shortlisted ¡°The Handmaid¡¯s Tale¡±. Atwood won the 2000 Booker Prize for ¡°The Blind Assassin¡± and was also shortlisted for ¡°Cat¡¯s Eye¡± (1989), ¡°Alias Grace¡± (1996) and ¡°Oryx and Crake¡± (2003).
The 2019 winner is scheduled to be announced on Monday, 14 October at an awards ceremony at London¡¯s Guildhall but rumours took its toll no sooner was the picture posted.
Responding to Indiatimes query, Booker Prize clarified that the winner has not been decided yet and that it was an error on the part of the bookstore.?
¡°We can confirm that the winner of the 2019 Booker Prize has not yet been decided, and will not be decided until the judges meet on 14 October 2019.
¡°At shortlist stage for The Booker Prize, display packs including shortlist sticker sheets and a winner sticker sheet are provided to booksellers and libraries across the UK. It seems that in this case a winner rather than shortlist sticker has been mistakenly applied to The Testaments by Margaret Atwood,¡± it said in a statement to Indiatimes.?
Margaret Atwood, Lucy Ellmann, Bernardine Evaristo, Chigozie Obioma, Salman Rushdie and Elif Shafak are the shortlisted authors.