{"id":7693,"date":"2016-10-26T12:43:42","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T16:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=7693"},"modified":"2016-10-28T05:57:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-28T09:57:45","slug":"man-booker-prize-paul-beatty-becomes-first-us-winner-for-the-sellout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/man-booker-prize-paul-beatty-becomes-first-us-winner-for-the-sellout","title":{"rendered":"Man Booker Prize: Paul Beatty becomes first US winner for The Sellout"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tim Masters Arts and entertainment correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n

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Paul Beatty with the Duchess of Cornwall. PA<\/p><\/div>\n

Paul Beatty has become the first US author to win the Man Booker Prize with his racial satire The Sellout.<\/strong><\/p>\n

His novel tells the story of a young black man who tries to reinstate slavery and racial segregation in a suburb of Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Amanda Foreman, chair of the judges, said the book managed “to eviscerate every social taboo”.<\/p>\n

Beatty’s win was announced at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Picking up the \u00a350,000 prize from the Duchess of Cornwall, Beatty, 54, was clearly overwhelmed with emotion and struggled for words as he began his acceptance speech.<\/p>\n

“I hate writing,” he admitted later in the speech.<\/p>\n

“This is a hard book,” he went on. “It was a hard for me to write, I know it’s hard to read. Everyone’s coming at it from different angles.”\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on the morning following his win, Beatty talked of how deeply it had affected him.<\/p>\n

“Writing’s given me a life,” he said.<\/p>\n

“It’s nice to know that something I’ve worked on for the last five years, if not more, has touched people, not only in the States but in the UK. That’s incredible.”<\/p>\n

He went on to describe the standout moment before publication when he realised he had written something of note, when doing a reading at an arts college in Maryland, Detroit.<\/p>\n

“I just had a sheaf of papers and started reading and I just lost it,” he said. “It hit me at that moment that I had written what was in my head\u2026 the tone, the language, emotion, the humour, it just all matched. I shocked myself that I was able to do that.”<\/p>\n

Asked if he was writing another book, Beatty laughed: “I am pretty exhausted and busy. My schedule needs to be clear to write so I’ve been thinking, not writing.”<\/p>\n

This is the third year that the \u00a350,000 prize has been open to writers of any nationality. The shortlist included two British, two US, one Canadian and one British-Canadian writer.<\/p>\n

While this is the first time an American author has won the main Booker Prize<\/span><\/a>, they have triumphed at the Booker International Prize<\/span><\/a> in previous years. It was won this year by Han Kang’s The Vegetarian<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

‘Top of their game’<\/h2>\n

The Sellout beat five other novels, including Madeleine Thien’s Do Not Say We Have Nothing, the bookies’ favourite, and Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Scottish crime thriller His Bloody Project.<\/p>\n

At the awards ceremony, chair of the judges Foreman said they had taken about four hours to reach their unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

She said The Sellout was “a novel for our times” that contained “an absolutely savage wit” reminiscent of Jonathan Swift or Mark Twain.<\/p>\n

“This is a book that nails the reader to the cross with cheerful abandon,” she elaborated. “But while you are being nailed you are being tickled.”<\/p>\n

Beatty was “someone writing at the top of their game”, she added.<\/p>\n

“This is a first-class piece of serious literature wrapped up in a shawl of humour.”<\/p>\n

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Shortlisted authors (from left) Paul Beatty, Deborah Levy, Graeme Macrae Burnet, Ottessa Moshfegh, David Szalay and Madeleine Thien. Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

The novel is narrated by Bonbon – a resident of the fictional “agrarian ghetto” of Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles, which has been removed from the map to save California from embarrassment.<\/p>\n

Bonbon is on trial in the Supreme Court for attempting to reinstitute slavery and segregation in the local high school as a means of bringing about civic order.<\/p>\n

Frances Gertler, web editor at Foyles bookshops, described The Sellout as “a smart satire with a memorable narrator”.<\/p>\n

“Brave and funny – it takes a bit of getting into but once there, you don’t want to leave,” she said.<\/p>\n

Waterstones fiction buyer, Chris White, said: “The Booker judges have awarded the most significant of literary prizes to what feels like the most significant novel to have emerged in these strange and difficult times.”<\/p>\n

Born in Los Angeles in 1962, Beatty’s three previous novels are Slumberland, Tuff and The White Boy Shuffle. He now lives in New York.<\/p>\n

The shortlisted authors each receive \u00a32,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. The winner receives a further \u00a350,000.<\/p>\n

This is the second consecutive Man Booker Prize success for independent publisher Oneworld, following Marlon James’s win with A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015.<\/p>\n

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The Man Booker 2016 shortlist:<\/h2>\n