Is there a formula for ‘the finest in fiction’?

They say that everyone has a book. But how about a Booker price? The six shortlist authors of the Booker Prize 2022 will probably ask this if you count the days down to the LIVE streamed award ceremony.

On Monday, October 17th, one of them is voted in the middle of the opulent environment of a crowded Guildhall in London with their novel as the 54th winner of a literary award, which is widely considered the most prestigious, most lucrative – and most controversial – of the United Kingdom.

The Booker Prize, which was first awarded in 1969, selected an excellent work of long fiction annually, which was published in the previous calendar year in English in Great Britain. In a step towards inclusion, an international award for authors was introduced by books that were translated into English, and in 2014 his main English -language main prize was changed to record books that were written by authors from all over the world.

Since then, literary heavyweights such as Bernardine Evaristo, Anne Enight, Julian Barnes and the late Hilary Mantel have produced. Worldwide attention is drawn every year. In 2020, the (virtual) award ceremony was none other than former US President Barack Obama.

But the booker also causes controversy. In recent years it has proven to be so unpredictable that even one of his winners compared the literature award with a “chicken raffle”. Based on an Australian custom of raffling off poultry as a fundraising activity, the sentence indicates that happiness than talent is the key to winning the price.

The unpredictability of the price is largely from some somewhat vague criteria. According to its rules, the Booker Prize aims to put “the best novels” in the spotlight. But what does that actually mean? Using the power of the middle average (and with a little help from Excel), I converted this soundbite into some cold, hard statistics. Based on every winner since the turn of the millennium, a snapshot of the average booker winner is. Nominated, watch out …

The average book

A 408-page hardcover cover of 581 grams (this corresponds to a large sweet potato), which was published in May before the Bloomsbury award ceremony. It is a historical fiction that will play in and around London at some point in the 1980s (the capital appears four times more often than any other city in the list of the latest Booker winners).

It examines the topics of time and memory, love and loss as well as family dynamics. It shows an introspective protagonist, one with a career in the creative industry that is something like a social outer outer, and is told in the past as a result of either the ego or third-person perspective. The novel contains several perspectives, many of which are unexpected: Think of the recently deceased or a herd of grazing cattle. It is sparse on punctuation and strong on political satire. Colonialism and its aftermath are important issues. Oh, and it also has a nice middle blue front cover.

The average author

White, Brit, male, 51 years and six months old. Yes, despite the recent efforts for more inclusiveness, the average booker-winning author still corresponds to the writer’s stereotype of male, pale and stale. (In the past, the probability that men win was more than twice as high as in women, although this year’s shortlist has a balanced gender relationship.)

The author has had an established career with a writer’s output of six books and an earlier Booker short list. They also like to try other media, especially in poetry and script writing. They are also twins – since 2000 those who were born in the sign of the twins have won twice as often as chance would predict. Must be written in the stars.

Determine the winner

So what do all these statistics say about this year’s shortlist? The quotas of the bookmakers are currently looking at Alan Garner’s Treacle Walker as a 3/1 favorite, and the novel certainly fulfills several criteria, from its research of time and memory-his motto is “Time Is Ignorance”-to his adorable blue cover.

Despite Gloryy’s orange-pink cover art, it also looks for Noviolet Bulawayo Rosig-she is the only author of the six who has previously become closer.

Less likely is a victory for The Trees from Percival Everett. It is a mixture of thriller and black comedy, two genres that traditionally had no success.

Likewise with Elizabeth Strouts Oh William!: A “Trequel” has never won (and also no novel with an exclamation mark in the title).

Claire Keegans Small Things Like Thesis, which plays Christmas 1985, fulfills the short time, but with its narrow 116 pages (238 g) his deficiency will probably speak against it.

Personally, I would put the seven moons of Maali Almeida on Shhan Karunatilakas. Historical fiction? Check. A deep immersion in the past form in the latest postcolonial trauma? Check. Narrator as a creative (photographer), outcast, spirit? Check, check, check. It even contains the lucky number of seven, the only number that was ever included in the title of a work awarded by Booker.

As a series player, the title holder Maali knows that “the chances of winning in the lottery are eight million”. In the Booker price “chicken raffle”, these opportunities reduce significantly to one to six or possibly even more if you judge earlier patterns.

Will the booker-winning book repeat itself on the 2022 shelf? Only the time – less than seven monds – will show it.

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