How Late It Was for England: James Kelman's Scottish Booker Prize

Abstract

T _ here may be no better, nor more entertaining, site for examining the intersection of literature with issues of national identity in contemporary England than the loud buzz that annually surrounds the Booker Prize. Established in 1969 and awarded to the year's best novel, the prize has taken on the status of an institution, despite or indeed because of the fact that scarcely a year has passed without major controversy attending the award. Inches and inches of newspaper columns and letters-tothe-editor pages are devoted to the relative merits of prize contenders, winners, and judges, and the awards ceremony itself-a black-tie dinner at London's upmarket Guildhall-is televised live to a nationwide audience. Ladbrokes, a national high-street bookmaking chain (not usually concerned with this sort of books), sets odds on the shortlisted novels and takes bets on which will win. From an American perspective, the sheer quantity of public debate and the intensity of feelings aroused by the choice of Booker finalists and winners may seem unlikely, perhaps a little peculiar-but also enviably enthusiastic. However, all the Booker fuss probably indicates not so much a nation deeply impassioned about books and reading as, rather, the fact that debates over the state of the English novel have much to tell about a broader crisis in English culture-a crisis dwelling in both the adjective (English) and the noun (culture). Scottish novelist, critic, and