Bibliofemme News
|
  |
20/10/2004
The Line of Beauty takes 2004 Booker
Alan Hollinghurst was last night named as the winner of the 2004 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his fourth novel, The Line of Beauty.
He had been shortlisted in 1994 for his novel, The Folding Star.
The Line of Beauty follows the story of Nicholas Guest, a young innocent who gets caught up in the triumphalist, opulent world of the 80s as lived by Gerald Fedden, the Tory MP with whom he lodges, and his circle.
A wonderfully observed, effortless novel, The Line of Beauty has been described as a 'masterpiece'.
Chair of the judges, Chris Smith MP, made the announcement at the awards dinner at the Royal Horticultural Halls, Westminster. Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, presented Hollinghurst with a cheque for 50,000.
Smith said, "This was an incredibly difficult and close decision. It has resulted in a winning novel that is exciting, brilliantly written and gets deep under the skin of the Thatcherite 80s. The search for love, sex and beauty is rarely this exquisitely done."
Each of the six shortlisted authors, which included Ireland's Colm Toíbin, received 2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.
Hollinghurst studied and then taught English at Oxford. His previous novels are The Swimming-Pool Library (winner of the Somerset Maugham Award), The Folding Star (shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1994 and winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize) and The Spell.
For several years he was the Deputy Editor of the Times Literary Supplement and was one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists in 1993.
<- back to the news
