So the Man Booker Prize is open to the United States now. I don't really know how I feel about this, it is kind of negative thing from my personal point of view being Australian, I now have less chance of being nominated but on the other hand I wasn't getting nominated anytime soon anyway.
The US market is so large that the inclusion of those writers creates a distinct disadvantage to commonwealth writers who will likely now be pushed out by bigger and badder publishing and marketing budgets.
A different kind of prize would be more appropriate, a non-commonwealth award would suffice, in a population of over 350 million you are just more likely to find great writing talent. If 1 in 500,000 people are published authors (completely made up stat) then the US would of course be statistically more likely to have more competitors than little old England or Australia.
The US market is so large that the inclusion of those writers creates a distinct disadvantage to commonwealth writers who will likely now be pushed out by bigger and badder publishing and marketing budgets.
A different kind of prize would be more appropriate, a non-commonwealth award would suffice, in a population of over 350 million you are just more likely to find great writing talent. If 1 in 500,000 people are published authors (completely made up stat) then the US would of course be statistically more likely to have more competitors than little old England or Australia.
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