| Two issues define the contours of late 20th century and early 21st century literary culture in Britain. On one hand, the strict division between accessible popular culture and difficult genuine art has been challenged and reformulated even as it has a residual force. On the other, England has been displaced from the center of Anglophone literary culture as works identified as "commonwealth," "postcolonial," "multicultural," and now "global" literature in English have become centrally important. This study of the Booker Prize illuminates the way that these two issues -- the changing understanding of accessibility in literature and the decentralization of England from Anglophone literature -- have taken place in relation to each other.;The Booker Prize makes visible how two new categories of literature, the literary bestseller and the postcolonial or minority novel, emerged in relation to each other. Moreover, the Booker Prize helped to create these categories and to establish their paradigmatic texts. The Booker Prize played, and continues to play, an important role in establishing what books are read and how they are read in classrooms, living rooms, chat rooms, and bedrooms throughout the English-speaking world. |
