Coventry welcomes the Booker Prize in as part of the City of Culture
Coventry being named the City of Culture has allowed the city has to be a part of many events this year. The Booker Prize is another event to add on. On October 29th Coventry University played host to the Booker Prize who were showcasing the authors that had graduated from the longlist to the shortlist which was announced on September 14th. This would be followed by another formal event later in the evening in the Southbank Centre, presenting the nominees in a more formal setting.
The winner of the Booker Prize will be presented in the BBC’s Radio Theatre where the winner will receive a £50,000 prize.
This year’s authors are younger than shortlists in the past, the youngest nominee being 33 year old Anuk Arudpragasm. The books in question range from many topics, such as the end of the Sri Lankan civil war to a story of two women from different eras. I spoke to the youngest nominee Anuk Arudpragasm about his upcoming book he says, “I plan to write it over the next months” “its about mothers and daughter and set in the diaspora”
Dr Benjamin Dew who is the associate head of school for humanities in Coventry University, has been organising the event. And when asked about how this would affect Coventry as a city, he said “it puts Coventry on the map as a literary centre” “This is the foremost English language literary prize in the world”.
As part of the event Coventry University had its students, prepare, and ask questions to the authors on their books and potential works in the future. Anuk Arudpragasm whose nominated is A Passage North, was interviewed by a journalism student about his future work he said, “it is about mothers and daughters and set in the diaspora” “Maybe 50% of the population live outside of Sri Lanka”.
Geoff Willcocks who is the director of arts, culture, and heritage for Coventry University added “This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to spend time working with such an illustrious list of authors”.
The hope is that these events will encourage more young people to maintain a healthy schedule of reading. Research from the charity The Reading Agency state that, In England, 31% of adults don’t read in their free time and 46% of young people aged (16-24) do not either. Also, with this being a relatively young list, people such as Anuk Arudpragasm can be seen as a role model for the younger generation, and therefore encourage more people to read and potentially become authors themselves.
