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.
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 United Arab Emirates (UAE), or simply the Emirates, is a country in West Asia, in the Middle East. Located at the eastern end of the Arabian Peninsula, it shares land borders with Oman to the east and Saudi Arabia to the southwest; as well as maritime borders in the Persian Gulf with Qatar and Iran. The United Arab Emirates is an elective monarchy formed from a federation of seven emirates. As of 2024, the UAE has an estimated population of about 10 million. Islam is the official religion and Arabic is the official language. Abu Dhabi is the country's capital, while Dubai, the most populous city, is an international hub.
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.
Dubai is the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the capital of the Emirate of Dubai, the most populated of the country's seven emirates. Founded in the 1800s as a fishing village, Dubai has emerged as a major center for regional and international trade since the early 20th century and early 21st centuries with a focus on tourism and luxury. It has the second-most five-star hotels in the world and the tallest building in the world, the Burj Khalifa, which is 828 metres (2,717 ft) tall. In the eastern Arabian Peninsula, on the coast of the Persian Gulf, it is a major global transport hub for passengers and cargo. Oil revenue helped accelerate the development of the city, which was already a major mercantile hub.
Thomas Graeme Cameron Gibson was a Canadian novelist. He was a Member of the Order of Canada (1992), a Senior Fellow of Massey College and one of the organizers of the Writers Union of Canada. He was also a founder of the Writers' Trust of Canada, a non-profit literary organization that seeks to encourage Canada's writing community.
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centres on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story's supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated: "In its blend of memoirs and photojournalism, and in its championing of contemporary realist fiction, Granta has its face pressed firmly against the window, determined to witness the world."
David James Pelzer is an American author of several autobiographical and self-help books. His 1995 memoir of childhood abuse, A Child Called "It": One Child's Courage to Survive, was listed on The New York Times Best Seller list for several years, and in 5 years had sold at least 1.6 million copies. The book brought Pelzer fame, and has also been a source of controversy, with accusations of several events being fabricated coming from both family members and journalists.
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".
Joanna Trollope is an English writer. She has also written under the pseudonym of Caroline Harvey. Her novel Parson Harding's Daughter won in 1980 the Romantic Novel of the Year Award by the Romantic Novelists' Association.
Geraldine Brooks is an Australian-American journalist and novelist whose 2005 novel March won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
Dubai Shopping Festival is an annual month long event put together by the Dubai Festivals & Retail Establishment (DFRE), which is a part of Dubai's Department of Economy and Tourism. During the festival, shops offer discounts on their merchandise, daily car raffles and prize drawings are held to win items such as gold and cars, and there is a fireworks display. There are also a range of family activities and live shows that take place throughout Dubai.
Geraldine McCaughrean is a British children's novelist. She has written more than 170 books, including Peter Pan in Scarlet (2004), the official sequel to Peter Pan commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital, the holder of Peter Pan's copyright. Her work has been translated into 44 languages worldwide. She has received the Carnegie Medal twice and the Michael L. Printz Award among others.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is a non-fiction book written by Margaret Atwood, about the nature of debt, for the 2008 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city, beginning in St. John's, Newfoundland, on October 12 and ending in Toronto on November 1. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas November 10–14. The book was published by House of Anansi Press, both in paperback and in a limited edition hardcover.
Geraldine Bedell is a British novelist and writer for The Observer.
Mavis Mary Cheek was an English novelist. She was the author of fifteen novels, several of which have been translated into other languages. Cheeks' debut novel Pause Between Acts won the 1988 She/John Menzies First Novel Prize.
Jessica "Decca" Aitkenhead is an English journalist, writer and broadcaster.
Climate fiction is literature that deals with climate change. Generally speculative in nature but inspired by climate science, works of climate fiction may take place in the world as we know it, in the near future, or in fictional worlds experiencing climate change. The genre frequently includes science fiction and dystopian or utopian themes, imagining the potential futures based on how humanity responds to the impacts of climate change. Climate fiction typically involves anthropogenic climate change and other environmental issues as opposed to weather and disaster more generally. Technologies such as climate engineering or climate adaptation practices often feature prominently in works exploring their impacts on society.
The Bastard of Istanbul is a 2006 novel by Elif Shafak, written originally in English and published by Viking Adult. It was translated by Aslı Biçen into her native language Turkish under the title Baba ve Piç in March 2006, and became a bestseller.
Hag-Seed is a novel by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, published in October 2016. A modern retelling of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the novel was commissioned by Random House as part of its Hogarth Shakespeare series.
