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The Booker Prize, formerly the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a prestigious literary award conferred each year for the best single work of sustained fiction written in the English language, which was published in the United Kingdom and/or Ireland. The winner of the Booker Prize receives £50,000, as well as international publicity that usually leads to a significant sales boost. When the prize was created, only novels written by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African citizens were eligible to receive the prize; in 2014, eligibility was widened to any English-language novel—a change that proved controversial.
Sir Terence David John Pratchett was an English author, humorist, and satirist, best known for the Discworld series of 41 comic fantasy novels published between 1983 and 2015, and for the apocalyptic comedy novel Good Omens (1990), which he co-wrote with Neil Gaiman.
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian novelist, poet, and literary critic. Since 1961, she has published 18 books of poetry, 18 novels, 11 books of nonfiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Her best-known work is the 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
The Handmaid's Tale is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. Offred is the central character and narrator and one of the "Handmaids": women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", who are the ruling class in Gilead.
The Blind Assassin is a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. It was first published by McClelland and Stewart in 2000. The book is set in the fictional Ontario town of Port Ticonderoga and in Toronto. It is narrated from the present day, referring to previous events that span the twentieth century but mostly the 1930s and 1940s. It is a work of historical fiction with the major events of Canadian history forming an important backdrop, for example, the On-to-Ottawa Trek and a 1934 Communist rally at Maple Leaf Gardens. Greater verisimilitude is given by a series of newspaper articles commenting on events and on the novel's characters from a distance.
Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do", yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation with only creatures called Crakers to keep him company. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy, and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake".
Emily of New Moon is the first in a series of novels by Lucy Maud Montgomery about a Canadian orphan girl growing up in Prince Edward Island. Montgomery is also the author of Anne of Green Gables series. It was first published in 1923.
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Thomas Kerridge is an English chef. After initially appearing in several small television parts as a child actor, he decided to attend culinary school at the age of 18. He has since worked at a variety of British restaurants, including the Rhodes in the Square and Adlards.
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Omar El Akkad is an Egyptian-Canadian novelist and journalist, whose novel What Strange Paradise was the winner of the 2021 Giller Prize.
American War is the first novel by the Canadian-Egyptian journalist Omar El Akkad. It is set in the United States in the near future, ravaged by climate change and disease, in which the Second Civil War has broken out over the use of fossil fuels.
The Forty Rules of Love is a novel written by the Turkish author Elif Shafak, Her interest in writing this book was influenced by the degree she received in Gender and Women’s Studies. The book was published in March 2009. It is about Maulana Jalal-Ud-Din, known as Rumi and his companion Shams Tabrizi. This book explains how Shams transformed a scholar into a Sufi (mystic) through love. More than 750,000 copies of this book were sold in Turkey and France.
Girl, Woman, Other is the eighth novel by Bernardine Evaristo. Published in 2019 by Hamish Hamilton, it follows the lives of 12 characters in the United Kingdom over the course of several decades. The book was the co-winner of the 2019 Booker Prize, alongside Margaret Atwood's The Testaments.
Syima Aslam Hon. FRSL is the CEO, Artistic Director and Founder of the Bradford Literature Festival.
The Big Jubilee Read is a 2022 campaign to promote reading for pleasure and to celebrate the Platinum Jubilee of Elizabeth II. A list of 70 books by Commonwealth authors, 10 from each decade of Elizabeth II's reign, was selected by a panel of experts and announced by the BBC and The Reading Agency on 18 April 2022.
References
- 1 2 3 "Explore the list of 100 Novels That Shaped Our World". BBC Arts. BBC. 5 November 2019. Retrieved 11 November 2019.
- 1 2 3 "100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News . 5 November 2019. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
- ↑ Sarakshi Rai (7 November 2019). "These are the 100 novels that have shaped our world, according to the BBC: How many of these books have you read?". Esquire magazine . Retrieved 10 November 2019.
These novels have all sparked "debate about the novels that have had a big impact on us all personally and culturally".
- 1 2 3 "Margaret Atwood, L.M. Montgomery, Carol Shields featured on BBC's list of 100 novels that shaped the world". CBC News . 8 November 2019. Retrieved 9 November 2019.
Five Canadian books are on the list: Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels, Unless by Carol Shields, Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and American War by Omar El Akkad.
- ↑ Sola Budunrin (10 November 2019). "Things Fall Apart, Half of A Yellow Sun named in the list of 100 novels that shaped the world". Legit.ng . Retrieved 10 November 2019.
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chinua Achebe and Ben Okri's novels made the list of 100 novels that shaped the world.
- 1 2 3 Alison Flood (5 November 2019). "Discworld dishes Moby-Dick: BBC unveils 100 'novels that shaped our world'". The Guardian . Retrieved 10 November 2019.
There's no Wuthering Heights, no Moby-Dick, no Ulysses, but there is Half of a Yellow Sun, Bridget Jones's Diary and Discworld: so announced the panel of experts assembled by the BBC to draw up a list of 100 novels that shaped their world.
- ↑ Kerridge, Jake (5 November 2019). "The BBC's 100 Novels That Shaped Our World is a short-sighted list that will please nobody". The Telegraph– via www.telegraph.co.uk.
- ↑ When the BBC listed a series, the date is the publication of the first novel.