Yesterday evening Eleanor Franzen of Elle Thinks and I had the enormous pleasure of attending the Booker Prize awards ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. I won tickets through “The Booker Prize Book Club” Facebook group, which launched just 10 or so weeks ago but has already garnered over 6000 members from around the world. They ran a competition for shortlist book reviews and probably did not attract nearly as many entries as they expected to. This probably worked to my advantage, but as it’s the only prize I can recall winning for my writing, I am going to take it as a compliment nonetheless! I submitted versions of my reviews of If I Survive You and Western Lane – the only shortlistees that I’ve read – and it was the latter that won us tickets.
We arrived at the venue 15 minutes before the doors opened, sheltering from the drizzle under an overhang and keeping a keen eye on arrivals (Paul Lynch and sodden Giller Prize winner Sarah Bernstein, her partner wearing both a kilt and their several-week-old baby). Elle has a gift for small talk and we had a nice little chat with Jonathan Escoffery and his 4th Estate publicist before they were whisked inside. His head was spinning from the events of the week, including being part of a Booker delegation that met Queen Camilla.
There was a glitzy atmosphere, with a photographer-surrounded red carpet and large banners for each shortlisted novel along the opposite wall, plus an exhibit of the hand-bound editions created for each book. We enjoyed some glasses of champagne and canapés (the haddock tart was the winner) and collared Eric Karl Anderson of Lonesome Reader. It was lovely to catch up with him and Eleanor and do plenty of literary celebrity spotting: Graeme Macrae Burnet, Eleanor Catton, judge Mary Jean Chan, Natalie Haynes, Alan Hollinghurst, Anna James, Jean McNeil, Johanna Thomas-Corr (literary editor of the Sunday Times) and Sarah Waters. Later we were also able to chat with Julianne Pachico, our Sunday Times Young Writer Award shadow panel winner from 2017. She has recently gotten married and released her third novel.
We were allocated to Table 11 in the front right corner. Also at our table were some Booker Prize editorial staff members, the other competition winner (for a video review) and her guest, an Instagram influencer, a Reading Agency employee, and several more people. The three-course dinner was of a very high standard for mass catering and the wine flowed generously. I thoroughly enjoyed my meal. Afterward we had a bit of time for taking red carpet photos and one of Eleanor with the banner for our predicted winner, Prophet Song.
Some of you may have watched the YouTube livestream, or listened to the Radio 4 live broadcast. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe’s speech was a highlight. She spoke about the secret library at the Iranian prison where she was held for six years. Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope, War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (there was a long waiting list among the prisoners and wardens, she said), and especially The Return by Hisham Matar meant a lot to her. From earlier on in the evening, I also enjoyed judge Adjoa Andoh’s dramatic reading of an excerpt from Possession in honour of the late Booker winner A.S. Byatt, and Shehan Karunatilaka’s tongue-in-cheek reflections on winning the Booker – he warned the next winner that they won’t write a word for a whole year.
There was a real variety of opinion in the room as to who would win. Earlier in the evening we’d spoken to people who favoured Western Lane, This Other Eden and The Bee Sting. But both Elle and I were convinced that Prophet Song would take home the trophy, and so it did. Despite his genuine display of shock, Paul Lynch was well prepared with an excellent speech in which he cited the apocrypha and Albert Camus. In a rapid-fire interview with host Samira Ahmed, he added that he can still remember sitting down and weeping after finishing The Mayor of Casterbridge, age 15 or 16, and hopes that his work might elicit similar emotion. I’m not sure that I plan on reading it myself, but from what I’ve heard it’s a powerfully convincing dystopian novel that brings political and social collapse home in a realistic way.
All in all, a great experience for which I am very grateful! (Thanks to Eleanor for all the photos.)
Have you read Prophet Song? Did you expect it to win the Booker Prize?
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I’ve reserved Prophet Song from the library, but an not expecting to find it an easy read. Didn’t you have fun? What a special evening. A highlight for 2023?
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It was fantastic! Quite possibly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
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How lovely! You both obviously had a brilliant time. I’m glad Prophet Song won. It’s a tough read but an extraordinarily well written one. It fits our times well, sadly. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe couldn’t have been a more appropriate speaker.
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Her speech was brilliant, heartfelt and concise. I admire Paul Lynch’s passion. I just worry that the style of his novel will make it a non-starter for me.
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I had to push myself to keep reading the first twenty or so pages but eventually got used to it and I’m glad I did. I found it immensely rewarding.
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I’m going to get it from the library for my husband to read and I’ll dip in and see how I go.
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Wow, that looks quite an evening! I love both your outfits too.
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It was! Elle’s (rented) jumpsuit was fabulous. My dress came from a charity shop last week.
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how exciting – and couldn’t have been awarded to a better reader/reviewer. The pix were great. Thanks for sharing!
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Thank you! I can still hardly believe it was real.
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What an adventure you had. It sounds very memorable and well done for being picked. Wonderful. I’m not sure I’m going to read the winner either but i have been meaning to read Hisham Matar’s The Return for a few years. It must have been a highlight to hear Nazanin speak.
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I think I’m going to pick up The Return over the holidays. After that I want to try Matar’s fiction.
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You’ve remembered all the details! It was a very good night. Thank you so much for inviting me 🙂
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Look at those glamour girls on the red carpet!
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😀
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Sounds a wonderful evening indeed. I watched the live broadcast, but couldn’t spot you – it was mostly this Jack Edwards chap (a YouTuber) talking to various bods (including Eric) in between filmed readings.
I only managed to read two of the shortlist, the Lynch and the Bernstein, didn’t engage with the latter, rather enjoyed the former a lot, so I was happy for it to win based on my selective knowledge. I have the Murray to read still, and fancy the Escoffery too, but not the remaining two so much.
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Chris also put on the livestream to try to spot me, but I don’t think the cameras ever got to our corner. I have heard mixed reports on Jack Edwards’ presenting. Apparently he got Chetna Maroo’s name wrong! (Though Escoffery was also spelt wrong on the seating plan.) I might pick up the Murray someday.
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That must have been fun.
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We had a blast!
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Congratulations, Rebecca! Sounds like a fantastic night.
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Thanks! It was great fun, the first time in a long time I’ve been able to attend a London event and of course quite the prestigious one.
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Well that sounds a night to remember! I’ve had Prophet Song on reservation from the library ever since it was longlisted – and it finally came today. I’m really hoping it proves more to my taste that three of the other Booker contenders I have tried this year.
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It certainly was! I wonder how you’ll get on with Prophet Song. My favourite from the longlist was The House of Doors, followed by Western Lane. I also enjoyed Old God’s Time and If I Survive You. I haven’t been hugely drawn to any of the others.
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That’s so exciting! Thank you for taking the time to give us all the details 🙂
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Also a useful aide-memoire, so thanks for indulging me!
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Thank you so much for writing up such a detailed recap of your night!! I felt like I was right there with you! Very exciting. And no I haven’t read Prophet Song.
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It’s coming out in the USA next week.
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What do they look for in a Booker shortlist or a winner? It seems to me that they don’t care about endless paragraphs or normal rules of language. Plot is anyone’s guess sometimes. I’ve just about given up on reading prize-winning books because of the disregard they seem to have for the reader. Is it all about the ‘art’ perhaps?
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That’s an interesting question, Jill. And it’s hard to say. I read the two most reader-friendly books from the shortlist, I think. The others posed various challenges in terms of theme or style. That doesn’t mean they’re not worth reading or wouldn’t reward the effort. But I confess I would find the lack of paragraph breaks in Prophet Song very taxing. The Booker does tend to go for highly literary choices, some of which are experimental and less than accessible (thinking of Milkman, in which I managed no more than a few pages). But there are plenty of other prizes out there!
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I got the ARC of Prophet Song and after I finish the book I’m reading now, it is next on my list. Apparently, the release in the US is only on December 12, but it was released in the UK in August.
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I heard today that its publication has been brought forward by a week. Sales will go through the roof!
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So glad you had a great time, these pics are wonderful! I was disappointed with the result, but another Irish winner is always a plus.
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Yes, that’s some consolation at least 🙂
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Ahhh Rebecca, this is everything I wanted in a recap and more!! So jealous of you and Eleanor 🙂 But so deserved. Don’t downplay your win, you write excellent reviews and it’s time you got rewarded.
I read a scathing review of Prophet Song that really put me off reading it, but I am also a Mayor of Casterbridge lover (might have been the first Hardy I read?) so now I’m rethinking.
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I have only come across one negative blog review (Cathy) and one negative newspaper opinion, which basically said it has an obvious political message. Which I guess is fair enough, but the points are there to be made about nations’ slides into authoritarianism and intolerance of refugees. It’s more the style that I think I’d struggle with.
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So cool!
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One of the cooler things to happen to me! I wish my mom had been here to see it.
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Thank you for sharing your night with us – it looks & sounds amazing!! Winning such a prize for your writing is something to shout from the rooftops! Bravo 🤩
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Thank you!
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That must have been SO much fun! I am so happy for you that you got to attend. Who knows? Maybe it’s just the beginning… 🙂
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I do hope it won’t be the last time. Who knows indeed!
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I’m coming to this late as I’m lagging at blog reading (but my own reviewing is nearly up to date; only Demon Copperhead to go!) but how wonderful and thank you for sharing the evening with us! I’m so chuffed for you as you’re such a leader in talking about new and recent books and helping to guide us all through them, here and elsewhere.
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Aww, thanks, Liz!
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[…] pinching-myself bookish moments: Attending the Booker Prize ceremony; interviewing Lydia Davis and Anne Enright over e-mail; singing carols after-hours at Shakespeare […]
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