This evening, the 2011 Man Booker Prize was awarded to Julian Barnes for his 150-page novel The Sense of an Ending . Barnes had been touted as the favorite since the shortlist was announced way back at the beginning of September, which, at least if all the snarky critics can be trusted, tends to mean that he should have lost. However, this time the ‘bookies’ had it right, and Barnes has finally taken home the big prize after three inclusions on the short list with no win. The Sense of an Ending is Barnes’ 11th novel, an intense exploration of memory and the experience of aging.
The Man Booker Prize for Fiction, first awarded in 1969, is given each year to what its judges deem the best novel written by a citizen of the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland. Barnes will be awarded £50,000 as well as much international attention and near-guaranteed bestseller status. Previous winners have included Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question (2010), Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall (2009), Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger (2008), Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss (2006) and Yann Martel’s Life of Pi (2002).
[via the Guardian]