Booker Prize: end of an era?

Observer critics liken this year’s Man Booker Prize win to that of NZ’s Keri Hulme on “that unforgettable night in the mid-80s.” Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi won thanks to “a virtuoso display of chairmanship” by Lisa Jardine. Hulme’s novel, the bone people, was similarly promoted by then chairman, Norman St John Stevas. Yet, while Hulme’s win belongs to “Booker’s glorious past,” The Life of Pi is called “reader friendly and market conscious” – something which has certainly never been said of Hulme’s difficult and experimental work.