It's been brilliant to see The Siege of Krishnapur mentioned frequently in print over the past few months. This book had also been on the shortlist when the public was earlier this year invited to vote for their favourite-ever Booker winner (Midnight's Children, unsurprisingly, came out top in that poll). But I was also interested to note that a couple of the judges, Susan Hill (1975) and Francis King (1976) picked out JG Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, which won in 1973, as their favourite ever winner of the prize. The Review piece, which involved judges from each of the years of the award spilling the beans on the rows, the compromises, the scandals and even the attempted seductions (Saul Bellow and Antonia Fraser!) on one level was nothing more than rather in-crowdy, though highly entertaining, literary gossip. (And yes, I know I write acres of stuff on the Turner, the Costas, the Booker et al, but there again, I am not, probably mercifully, entirely in charge of my own destiny nor, I indeed, was I anything but overjoyed when my last book was shortlisted for an award, so my standards are double). This Saturday's Guardian Review was largely devoted to the Booker prize 40 years on - thus combining two of my least favourite devices for publicity and journalism, the award and the anniversary.
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