The planned announcement of the winner of the International Booker Prize has been moved from May to the summer because of the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on book sales, the Guardian reports.
The postponement comes at the request of the publishers of the books on the shortlist, who noted that the closing of physical bookstores had depressed sales of the titles.
Daniela Petracco, the director of Europa Editions UK, which publishes finalist Shokoofeh Azar’s The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, told the Guardian that the presses had urged the Booker Prize Foundation to postpone the announcement to “a more propitious moment, at a time when booksellers—independents and chains—can make the most of it and readers can easily get their hands on the books.”
The Booker Prize Foundation, which had already been mulling a change of the announcement date, agreed. They have yet to designate a new date for the announcement.
Gaby Wood, the foundation’s literary director, said in a news release, “After careful consideration, we’ve decided on this course of action to ensure that the shortlist, and ultimately the winner, can be celebrated at a time when readership of these exceptional novels is made easier for everyone. As the world begins to recover, their contents will be found all the more rewarding for being, in effect, a form of travel.”
The other books on the shortlist include Yoko Ogawa’s The Memory Police, Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s The Adventures of China Iron, Fernanda Melchor’s Hurricane Season, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld’s The Discomfort of Evening, and Daniel Kehlmann’s Tyll.
Last year’s winner, Jokha Alharthi’s Celestial Bodies, was announced on May 19, 2019.
Michael Schaub is a Texas-based journalist and regular contributor to NPR.
