(John Carey is one of the most revered and longest-serving of the Man Booker Prize judges)
* * *
By 2002, there was an extraordinary piece of news in the book world. Booker-McConnell had run out of spare money and could no longer sponsor the Booker prize. Arrgh.
Conversely, by that same date, I was doing quite well as an author/ journalist/ speaker, and thought about sponsoring the Asian literary prize myself—but then realized that that I definitely did not want it to carry my own name. It would do much better with a big name.
* * *
Fortunately, the world's best-respected book prize was rescued. The Booker Foundation enlisted Man Group, an investment firm, to become title sponsor, and the prize became the Man Booker Prize.
We realized that the prize we fantasized about creating would thus become something like the Man Booker Asian Literary Prize, or Man Asian Literary Prize, names which were long and unwieldy, but had some grandeur to them. That would be just fine.
***
(Amitav Ghosh)
At the 2002 festival I talked to Amitav Ghosh, who had some interesting things to say about prizes—and revealed that his publisher actually hid the fact that he had won major science fiction prizes, wanting to position him as a literary author.
Prizes define authors.
(Charles Foran)
Charles Foran, a Canadian author who became (and still is) one of my best friends, also gave me a lot of help and advice: he had been nominated for the Governor-General’s Award, a Canadian equivalent of the Booker Prize.
* * *
Then one day, Rosemary Sayer turned up at our monthly "lit fest" meeting with some amazing news. It seemed like the wildest version of our dream could take one step towards become a reality.
The Man Group (sponsor of the Man Booker Prize) was expanding in Asia, and her company was advising on marketing, right here in Hong Kong.
“Thank you, GOD,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” Peter Gordon joked.
* * *
In 2003, Man Group became a sponsor of the festival, which that year featured authors such as Shobhaa De and Liu Hong. Here was the chance of making it happen – a Booker Prize for Asia.
I made a beeline for Matt Dillon, the boss of Man’s Hong Kong operation. At cocktail party, I nearly choked on my lime-infused Thai crab cake when he told me that he had a passion for high-end Asian literature. “Wow, you mean there’s two of us?” I said. Despite the playful response, I was suspicious at first, and assumed he was joking or just being encouraging.
(Matt Dillon)
But Matt, a tall, genial man, was deadly serious, telling me he had read several Japanese classics in their original Japanese!
We got on like a house on fire and Matt was politely receptive to the idea of having a prize for Asia.
But after repeating the plea on several occasions, and making it crystal clear that I was serious about making it happen, not just having small talk, he was equally clear about his inability to deliver such a thing for us.
“Such a decision would not be made here,” he said. He promised to have a word with his colleagues in Europe.
* * *
Matt and the Man Group turned out to be fabulous sponsors for the Hong Kong festival, just as the firm was a great sponsor for the Man Booker Prize.
(The original sponsors would regularly give the judges “suggestions”, such as “can we insist that the winning books all have happy endings?”. In contrast, the Man Group did no such thing, keeping a strictly hands-off approach, and increasing the prize money from 21,000 pounds to 50,000 pounds.)
But we were soon to learn that doors swinging open can just as suddenly swing shut.
