Prizes can be superfluous. I say this because we all know how frustrating they can be, year after year, as debates about the best film, album or book pop up at dinner tables. We know these decisions are subjective, and almost always political, but wait for them anyway because celebrating these achievements makes us happier to be human, if only for a little while, until the next shortlist appears.
The Booker Prize longlist will appear this month, and while it will be earth-shattering only to the rapidly shrinking number of people who still think about literature while the world burns, it is always an announcement that generates more words in opinion pieces than in the actual books the prize is meant to evaluate. I am rooting this year for Hilary Mantel, the English writer who will turn 68 by the time the longlist appears, and who I hope will win for an unprecedented third time.
This isn’t about gender equality, because that argument will inevitably pop up among talking heads in our TikTok-powered “woke generation”. Mantel may be the first woman to receive a Booker twice, but her winning it one more time has nothing to do with her sex, and everything to do with the fact that she is a phenomenal writer.
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