Booker Prize

an annual prize of £50,000 (originally £20,000) for a work of fiction by a living British, Irish, or Commonwealth writer. Great Britain's premier literary award, it has been underwritten since 1969 by the British food-distribution company Booker PLC, now part of The Big Food Group PLC. In 2002 the Man Group, a British hedge fund, became a co-sponsor of the award, which was officially renamed the Man Booker Prize. Recipients have included Nadine Gordimer, Iris Murdoch, Salman Rushdie, A. S. Byatt, Peter Carey, and Ian McEwan. In 2004 an additional award, the Man Booker International Prize, was introduced. An award of £60,000 given for overall achievement in fiction, it is presented every two years to a living author of any nationality whose fiction is either written in English or is generally available in English translation. It was first given (2005) to the Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare.