Booker 2005 Controversy – Already

Interesting article on the Guardian Books site about comments made by John Sutherland, the Chairman of the 2005 Man Booker Prize Panel:

The newly announced chairman of the 2005 Man Booker prize has admitted that the judges are unlikely to read all 130 books in contention, while describing his fellow judges as “light on the minorities” and the process as like a “world federation wrestling match”.

John Sutherland, an emeritus professor of English at the University of London and a Guardian columnist, said: “It takes six or seven hours to read a novel, and a judge is being paid about £3,000. You don’t have to read the whole thing to know it doesn’t qualify.