Banville wins Man Booker Prize
John Banville was the surprise winner of the Man Booker Prize tonight with his novel The Sea.
The contest was expected to be a run-off between bookmakers’ favourite Julian Barnes, former winner Kazuo Ishiguro, and Zadie Smith.
But Banville, a 7/1 outsider, triumphed after a fierce debate among the judges.
They had been torn between Banville and Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go.
Chair of the judges John Sutherland cast the deciding vote.
He said: “In an extraordinarily closely contested last round, in which the judges felt the level of the shortlisted novels was as high as it can ever have been, they have agreed to award the Man Booker Prize to John Banville’s The Sea, a masterly study of grief, memory and love recollected.
“The judges salute all the shortlisted novels.”
He added: “It was a very difficult decision.
“These are six extremely different novels, all of them good in a very different way.
“The discussions honestly could have gone on for three days. Whether it would have come out in a different decision I don’t know, I hope it wouldn’t.”
Banville’s win is a neat reversal of fortune.
In 1989 his novel The Book Of Evidence was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
It lost out to Ishiguro’s The Remains Of The Day.
The narrator of The Sea is Max Morden, a middle-aged arts historian mourning the recent death of his wife from cancer.
He returns to the Irish seaside town where he spent a childhood summer and recalls the traumatic events which have haunted him ever since.
Sutherland described it as a “beautifully written novel with a very melancholy subject”.
Accepting his prize, Banville said: ``This is a great surprise and a great pleasure.
“I must thank the judges, who are suddenly my best friends in the world.
“And to my friends – it’s a cliché, but it’s true, any one of these books could have won.”
He added: “I do say to my colleagues: just hang in there, it will come. I hung around for many years.”
Banville dedicated the award to his children.
This is Banville’s 14th novel.
The 59-year-old, born in Wexford and now living in Dublin, is the first Irish winner since Roddy Doyle in 1993.
The prize is worth £50,000 (€72,000) and a guaranteed boost in sales.
The award ceremony was held at the London Guildhall.
