How Much Money Is The Man Booker Prize?

From a former-nominee to a somewhat unexpected-nominee, his year’s line-up of Man Booker Prize-winning hopefuls is not to be missed. The 2016 Man Booker Prize shortlist includes Paul Beatty, for his novel The Sellout, Deborah Levy for Hot Milk, Graeme Macrae Burnet’s His Bloody Project, Ottessa Moshfegh for Eileen, David Szalay’s novel All That Man Is, and Madeleine Thien for Do Not Say We Have Nothing — the makings of a serious TBR list, if I ever saw one. But once one of these honored novelists wins, how much prize money is the Man Booker Prize-winner awarded?

According to the Man Booker Prizes website, the winner of the Man Booker Prize receives £50,000, and each of the shortlisted authors (all those fabulous folks featured above) is awarded £2,500. That’s approximately $60,900 and $3,050 respectively. The not-so-fun fact is that the British Pound is in serious decline at the moment — last year when Marlon James won the Man Booker Prize for his novel A Brief History of Seven Killings, the exchange rate was closer to double. But I digress; because as any hard working writer knows, the Man Booker Prize is a serious honor, no matter what the exchange rate. Plus, even better than the award money, the Man Booker Prize guarantees their prizewinner and each of the shortlisted authors global readership and increased book sales. You really can’t beat that.

The Man Booker Prize, which was established in 1969, is awarded each year for the best English-language novel published in the UK. The award’s sister prize, the Man Booker International Prize for Fiction, is currently awarded to one book in English translation, for the same amount, to be split between author and translator. Both awards are supported by the alternative investment management firm Man Group, which has sponsored the Man Booker Prizes since 2002. This year’s Man Booker Prize International award winner was Korean author Han Kang, for her novel The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith.

Other 2016 Man Booker Prize-nominees include the longlist of authors, a list of 13 novels that adds J.M. Coetzee’s novel The Schooldays of Jesus, A.L. Kennedy ‘s Serious Sweet, Ian McGuire’s The North Water, David Means’s Hystopia, Wyl Menmuir’s The Many, Virginia Reeves’s Work Like Any Other, and Elizabeth Strout’s My Name Is Lucy Barton, to the shortlisted titles mentioned above.

The 2016 Man Booker Prize winner will be announced on Tuesday, October 25, which means it’s definitely time to get reading.