"What is the Booker Prize?"

Xie Yu asked bluntly, he had heard of the Mao Dun Literature Award, the Lu Xun Literature Award, and the Lao She Literature Award, but he had never heard of the Booker Award.

Gui Xuefeng frowned and replied, "Last year's Nobel Prize winner for literature, Kazuo Ishiguro, seems to be the winner of the Booker Prize, right?"

Judging from the fact that this award-winning work and writer include the new Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro, this award is certainly not ordinary.

The middle-aged woman shook her head and said, "Anyway, it's a literary award, just published by the People's Daily." ”

"Then I'll have to take a look, this award is very good, much more valuable than our literary award here. ”

This is not Gui Xuefeng's admiration for foreign countries, but it is not too glorious to win the domestic literature award, so he once said before that he has a certain degree of confidence to push Zhang Chu up.

Compared with other literary awards in the world, it is generally believed that China's literary awards have no credibility!

Since the beginning of the new century, Chinese contemporary literature awards have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain, showing a posture of blossoming everywhere.

These awards are not only from the government, such as the Contradiction, Lu Xun, Cao Yu Award, etc., but also a large number of various awards from the private sector.

Even if you take the poetry award as an example, there are awards such as soft poetry, Liu Li'an Poetry Award, Zhongkun International Poetry Award and so on.

Some of these folk awards are privately funded and some are corporate sponsors, so it looks like a mess!

Not to mention ordinary people, even the authors themselves find it difficult to distinguish their quality and standard.

Every year, there will be shady scandals in the Mao Dun Literature Award and Lu Xun Literature Award, and many people in the industry do not think about these awards, because there is indeed an image of manipulation and relationship behind the selection.

This is actually a very sad thing, in other countries any award winner will feel proud, but on the side of Chinese writers, after winning some domestic literary awards, they will feel inferior, self-abandoning, and self-deprecating in front of industry insiders.

There has been a flood of awards across the country, especially local governments and enterprises are trying their best to hold an award.

The fact that the winners have a lot of work in the dark before winning the awards, and after they receive a series of additional material and moral rewards from all levels of government, makes these awards increasingly suspicious.

In Gui Xuefeng's view, contemporary Chinese literary awards can be roughly divided into four categories, namely government awards, media awards, non-governmental awards and private awards.

Among them, the media award is represented by the Chinese literary media award held by the Southern Metropolis Daily, which is based on the preference of the judges, and the quality of most of the works is still above the standard.

Of course, not all foreign things are good, just like the Booker Prize now, there are many people who attack it!

A British writer once wrote an article in Time magazine criticizing the Booker Prize, arguing that the Booker Prize is a highly imperial prize, and its winners oscillate between two groups.

One group is a middle-class English-language writer, and the other is a group of writers from Britain's former colonies, and the Booker Prize shows its legitimacy by awarding prizes to writers from past colonies.

Of course, this is just the word of the family, and no one knows whether it is true or false when they are not involved in the operation of the award.

The aforementioned Kazuo Ishiguro is a Japanese-British national, and many people are criticizing him, and if he is still a Japanese national, he may be at a disadvantage in the selection of the Booker Prize.

Having said all that, what kind of award is it?

The Booker Prize is considered to be the highest award in the contemporary English language world, and is one of the most influential literary awards in the world.

Awarded annually since 1969, initially only original writers from the United Kingdom, Ireland and Commonwealth countries were eligible to be shortlisted.

But after 2014, all writers in English around the world can participate in the Booker Prize.

Zhang Chu's luck is really good, his "Life of Pi" happened to be translated into English, and the time of rebirth is relatively good, if he had been shortlisted for the Booker Prize a few years ago!

The Booker Prize is named after its sponsor, the food supply company Booker. However, since 2002, it has been sponsored by the Man Group, and the name has changed from Booker-Prize to Man-Booker-Prize, but in Chinese translation, it is still customary to call it "Booker Prize".

The selection of this award is produced after three rounds of review and election, the first round selects 13 works from the long list, and the second round selects 6 works from the long list to form a short list, and finally announces the final winner of the Booker Prize!

Now Life of Pi is one of the 144 English-language works that makes it to that long list.

Zhang Chu, the author, did not know that his work was sent to the selection of the Booker Prize, and all of this was pushed up by the bookseller Random House.

The book has been selling in the UK for several months, but sales have not been particularly satisfactory, and there is a lack of an opportunity to make an appearance!

That Sherlock has all sorts of connections that readers can discover, but Life of Pi is the only way to go.

Luckily, it's of very good quality, and with the recommendation of Random House, it has carved its way out of English-language publications around the world.

Because the management committee of the Booker Prize is composed of writers, publishers, agents, booksellers, librarians, etc., in addition to the list of five suggestions that each publisher can put forward, the Booker Management Committee selects five judges with professional backgrounds, including literary critics, scholars, literary editors, and celebrities in society.

Every judge must have read all the books on the shortlist and the list of recommendations, and Life of Pi is on the list of five recommendations!

This year's Random House has suffered a heavy loss, and in the long list of as many as 13 books, only Zhang Chu's book has been brushed down, and the rest of the works have all been brushed down.

It is the world's most controversial giant in English-language publishing, but it has become a stand-up to the Booker Prize.

If there is no "Life of Pi", they will still have to hang zero on the long list, and they will definitely be laughed to death by their peers!

Zhang Chu didn't understand his agent's excitement, he asked: "Right now, this is just a long list, not a short list or an award, why celebrate?"

"You should go make up for it, even if it's a long list, it means that Life of Pi is starting to come into the reader's sight. I thought the British didn't like this book, but I didn't expect a surprise!"

Zhou Kang rubbed his hands and wanted to open a bottle of wine to celebrate.