International

Booker Prize to be renamed

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON APRIL 26 . The Booker Prize is to be renamed the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, and the prize money raised from £20,000 to £50,000. There is also a move to open it to American writers following criticism that its present format, which allows only writers in English from Britain and the Commonwealth to compete, is too restrictive.

The moves follow a change of sponsorship behind the English-speaking world's most prestigious literary prize. It will now be sponsored by the Man Group, an international stockbroker that has plans to invest over £2 millions in revamping the prize over the next five years. There had been uncertainty about the future of the prize after the Booker company, which founded it in 1969, was taken over by a frozen food retail chain that was not interested in running the competition.

Apparently there was a queue of prospective sponsors, but the over-200-year-old Man Group offered the "best package to allow the prize to continue to develop with integrity both in the U.K. and overseas", according to the Booker Prize Foundation. Its new sponsors sought to allay fears that the planned changes might dilute the distinctiveness that have made the Booker such a coveted award.

"We want both to preserve the integrity of the Prize and develop it. There is an appetite for the whole reach and range of the award to be reconsidered. We are looking particularly at bringing America into the picture," a spokesman said.

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