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.
The John Llewellyn Rhys Prize was a literary prize awarded annually for the best work of literature by an author from the Commonwealth aged 35 or under, written in English and published in the United Kingdom. Established in 1942, it was one of the oldest literary awards in the UK.
The Miles Franklin Literary Award is an annual literary prize awarded to "a novel which is of the highest literary merit and presents Australian life in any of its phases". The award was set up according to the will of Miles Franklin (1879–1954), who is best known for writing the Australian classic My Brilliant Career (1901). She bequeathed her estate to fund this award. As of 2016, the award is valued at A$60,000.
Timothy John Winton is an Australian writer. He has written novels, children's books, non-fiction books, and short stories. In 1997, he was named a Living Treasure by the National Trust of Australia, and has won the Miles Franklin Award four times.
David George Joseph Malouf is an Australian poet, novelist, short story writer, playwright and librettist. Elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2008, Malouf has lectured at both the University of Queensland and the University of Sydney. He also delivered the 1998 Boyer Lectures.
Romesh Gunesekera FRSL is a Sri Lankan-born British author, who was shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel Reef in 1994. He has judged a number of literary prizes and was Chair of the judges of Commonwealth Short Story Prize competition for 2015.
Nadeem Aslam FRSL is a British Pakistani novelist. His debut novel, Season of the Rainbirds, won the Betty Trask and the Author's Club First Novel Award. His critically acclaimed second novel Maps for Lost Lovers won Encore Award and Kiriyama Prize; it was shortlisted for International Dublin Literary Award, among others. Colm Tóibín described him as "one of the most exciting and serious British novelists writing now".
Gail Jones is an Australian novelist and academic.
The Man Asian Literary Prize was an annual literary award between 2007 and 2012, given to the best novel by an Asian writer, either written in English or translated into English, and published in the previous calendar year. It is awarded to writers who are citizens or residents of one of the following 34 Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, East Timor, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Japan, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, The Maldives, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Vietnam. Submissions are invited through publishers who are entitled to each submit two novels by August 31 each year. Entry forms are available from May.
Michelle de Kretser is an Australian novelist who was born in Sri Lanka, and moved to Australia in 1972 when she was 14.
The Lost Dog is a 2007 novel by Australian writer Michelle de Kretser.
Shehan Karunatilaka is a Sri Lankan writer. He grew up in Colombo, studied in New Zealand and has lived and worked in London, Amsterdam and Singapore. His 2010 debut novel Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew won the Commonwealth Book Prize, the DSC Prize, the Gratiaen Prize and was adjudged the second greatest cricket book of all time by Wisden. His third novel The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida was announced as the winner of the 2022 Booker Prize on 17 October 2022.
Patrick McGuinness FRSL FLSW is a British academic, critic, novelist, and poet. He is Professor of French and Comparative Literature at the University of Oxford, where he is Fellow and Tutor at St Anne's College.
Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld is an Anglo-Australian author. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, won the Encore Award in 2013 and the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the Stella Prize in 2021.
Diana Omo Evans FRSL is a British novelist, journalist and critic who was born and lives in London. Evans has written four full-length novels. Her first novel, 26a, published in 2005, won the Orange Award for New Writers, the Betty Trask Award and the deciBel Writer of the Year award. Her third novel Ordinary People was shortlisted for the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction and won the 2019 South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature. A House for Alice was published in 2023.
Questions of Travel is a 2012 novel by Australian author Michelle de Kretser. It won the 2013 Miles Franklin Award and the 2013 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Fiction.
Commonwealth Foundation presented a number of prizes between 1987 and 2011. The main award was called the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and was composed of two prizes: the Best Book Prize was awarded from 1987 to 2011; the Best First Book prize was awarded from 1989 to 2011. In addition the Commonwealth Short Story Competition was awarded from 1996 to 2011.
Yasmine Gooneratne was a Sri Lankan poet, short story writer, university professor and essayist. She was recognised in Sri Lanka, Australia, throughout Europe, and the United States, due to her substantial creative and critical publications in the field of English and post-colonial literature. After 35 years in Australia, she returned to live in Sri Lanka.
Anuk Arudpragasam is a Sri Lankan Tamil novelist writing in English and Tamil. His debut novel The Story of a Brief Marriage was published in 2016 by Flatiron Books/Granta Books and was subsequently translated into French, German, Czech, Mandarin, Dutch and Italian. The novel, which takes place in 2009 during the final stages of the Sri Lankan Civil War, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the German Internationaler Literaturpreis. His second novel, A Passage North, was published in 2021 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
