ENGL 220   The Booker Prize

The Booker Prize is awarded annually to a new novel published in the UK by an author from the UK or a former territory of the British Empire. Recently the prize has also been opened to American authors, a source of great controversy. Students follow the year's Booker Prize proceedings, and the class schedule will be built live alongside developments in the prize season over the course of the fall semester. In addition to analyzing these texts as works of literature, students will dissect the evolving aesthetics and politics of the prize. Why is the Booker a cultural phenomenon in England and what does it mean to consider the former "Empire" through these texts? What roles do the judges, the sponsors, and the British and international reading public have? Students read one novel from the Booker longlist, all six novels on the shortlist, as well as supplementary critical essays relevant to the texts at hand.