In praise of prizes
From Martyn Goff OBE Sir: It's always a shame when a journalist you have read for years and greatly admired writes appalling nonsense as Paul Johnson has done (And another thing, 19 July).
Writing about British book prizes, he starts by calling the Man Booker Prize 'dreadful', and goes on to say that it 'has fallen into the hands of moneybags, the publicity hounds.. . ' and much more like that.
I have been administering the Booker Prize (now Man Booker) for 33 years. Georgetown University, Washington, DC devotes part of its English Department in the fall term every year; Wisconsin University's magazine devotes 25 pages to a study of the Booker. And, of course, there has been a weekend seminar at the University of East Anglia.
Paul Johnson goes on to allege that the prize's winners and shortlisted authors are not close to the real reading public. Really? Arundhati Roy won the prize with a first novel. She became a millionairess through the number of copies sold round the world, let alone put India on the literary map as Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood and J.M. Coetzec have Australia, Canada and South Africa. Equally, if Paul Johnson were to question any public librarian in this country, he would find dozens of people reserve the Man Booker winners and shortlistecl books long before they are announced. So much for Johnson's statement that Michael Caine, Booker's longtime chairman, 'had little interest in such humdrum toilers as librarians'.
Marlyn Goff The Man Booker Prize, London W1
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