BOOKER PRIZE: More than an element of the usual suspects shaped the nominations - writers, not individual books, as initially expected - for the first biennial Man International Booker Prize, won by one of the least-tipped runners, Albanian Ismail Kadare.
A quintet of Nobel literature laureates had been lined up, with one former Booker Prize winner in an 18-strong selection, including three women, and the US triumvirate of Philip Roth, John Updike and the late Saul Bellow.
The object of the prize - which is presented in honour of a body of work rather than a single book - could be seen as a less political version of the Nobel Prize. On the other hand, it is a very clever addition to the already active Man Booker marketing campaign.
Unlike the Nobel Prize, this award, to be presented every two years, offers an official list as opposed to muted speculation. It included writers with established international profiles.
Observers, however, might well be forgiven for not even being aware of the £60,000 award, the outcome of which was announced yesterday when former dissident poet turned novelist, Kadare, was declared winner.
Born in 1936, he was educated in Russia and began his literary career as a poet, often wrongly compared with Yevgeny Yevtushenko.
Kadare, who returned to Albania in 1960 when his country broke free of Russia, was granted political asylum in France in 1990, and now divides his time between France and Albania.
He has written many books, most of which have not yet been translated into English, although an early work, The General of Dead Armies (1963), translated into 20 languages, is considered Albania's first novel.
He has been well served by the astute British publisher Harvill, which has published some of his works, including The Palace of Dreams and the haunting Spring Flowers, Spring Frost, which was nominated for the 2004 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
It failed to make the subsequent short list. Winning this prize may well heighten interest in his work.
But the prize itself is undermined by its haphazard approach - it does give the impression of being a random gathering.
With the presence on the list of Günter Grass, Naguib Mahfouz, Kenzaburo Oe, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the long-time self-exile Milan Kundera, and the victory of Kadare - whose dissident past confirms that even at its most apolitical, literature is about politics - the intention is to highlight the internationalism of literature.
Also included was one of the world's best-selling literary writers, Canadian Margaret Atwood.
Cynthia Ozick has to date a small body of fiction, overshadowed by her better-known criticism and essays.
It is interesting to see the US trio of Bellow, Roth and Updike sharing the stage. Few could dispute the enduring achievement of the veteran Scot Muriel Spark, but one might wonder about the absence of two South African literature laureates, Nadine Gordimer and JM Coetzee.
Looked at this way, another serious omission was that of the veteran Irish writer, William Trevor.
Consolation, however, was to be had in the inclusion of US master John Updike, who has been honoured in the US but has won surprisingly few international awards. It would have been satisfying to see this inaugural prize being decided between him and Günter Grass.
Death in early April had already eliminated Saul Bellow from the proceedings and he was actually disqualified.
When the Man International Booker Prize was first announced, it seemed to be marking the way for the long-awaited inclusion of US writers who, unlike the Canadians, have never been eligible for the Booker, now in its 36th year.
Also included for consideration were Ian McEwan, Doris Lessing, Poland's Stanislaw Lem, Antonio Tabucchi, a fascinating artist known for limpid, subtle narratives of immense grace, and the Argentinian Tomas Eloy Martinez. Overall though, for all the fun of assessing random lists of writers - and few selections could claim to be as random as that of the Man International Booker Prize - it seems to be saying, this really is one list too many and would have been better served by pitting individual books rather than writers against each other.
