MPSC 2021 Prelims Paper-I · Question 92 of 100

Correct — option (2), Shuggie Bain. The 2020 Booker Prize went to 'Shuggie Bain' by Douglas Stuart, a debut novel published that year. It is set in post-industrial Glasgow between 1981 and 1992 and follows a boy growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes as the city's heavy industry collapses around them; the novel is closely drawn from the author's own childhood and is dedicated to his mother. Stuart was only the second Scottish writer to win the prize since it was first awarded in 1969, and the win was widely noted because first novels rarely take it. What makes this question difficult is not the winner but the option set, because every one of the other three names is also a Booker-winning novel — from 2016, 2013 and 2012 respectively. The Commission has assembled four genuine winners and asked for the one attached to a particular year, so recognition is worthless and only the pairing of book to year will do. The lesson generalises to the whole of the awards section: for any prize the Commission is likely to ask about, learn the last several winners as a dated list rather than as a set of names, because a set of names is exactly what the distractors are drawn from. It is also worth keeping the Booker Prize itself distinct from the International Booker Prize, which is a separate award for a single work translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, and whose money is shared equally between the author and the translator. The Booker Prize proper, which this question is about, is for a novel written originally in English; since 2014 it has been open to writers of any nationality rather than only to those of the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe, which is why an American novel appears among the distractors. One printing note: the paper sets option (4) as 'Bring up the bodies', with lower-case letters where the published title has 'Bring Up the Bodies'. It is reproduced here as printed.

• (1)The Sellout — 'The Sellout' is a real Booker winner, but of 2016 and not 2020. It is a satirical novel by the American writer Paul Beatty about race in the United States, and its win was historically significant for the prize rather than for the year in question: Beatty was the first American writer to take the Booker, which had become possible only after the eligibility rules were widened in 2014 to admit any novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom, in place of the older restriction to writers from the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe. That change is worth knowing because it explains the presence of American novels in the recent list at all, and because it is itself examinable. As an answer to this question it is simply four years out.
• (3)The Luminaries — 'The Luminaries' won the Booker in 2013, seven years before the year named in this stem. It is a long novel by the New Zealand writer Eleanor Catton set during the gold rush on the country's South Island, and it is remembered for two records: Catton was the youngest winner of the prize, at twenty-eight, and the book was the longest novel to have won it. Those distinctions make it memorable, and memorability is exactly what a distractor needs. A candidate who recognises the title as 'a Booker book' and stops there will treat recognition as knowledge and lose the mark. The discipline the question demands is to attach a year to each title before entering the examination hall, because the four titles here are indistinguishable on any other test.
• (4)Bring up the bodies — 'Bring Up the Bodies', which the English column prints in lower case, is Hilary Mantel's novel of 2012 and won the Booker Prize that year. It is the second volume of her trilogy about Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII, following 'Wolf Hall', which had itself won the prize in 2009; the double win made Mantel the first woman and the first British author to take the Booker twice. It is thus the most decorated of the three wrong options and, for a candidate who reads fiction, the most familiar — which is why it sits at the end of the list. The distance from 2020 is eight years. Note the printing: the published title capitalises 'Up' and 'Bodies', while the paper does not, and the card reproduces the paper's form without correcting it.

The Booker Prize is the best-known literary award in the English-speaking world and is given each year for a single novel written originally in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. Its eligibility rules have changed in a way worth remembering: for most of its history it was open only to writers from the Commonwealth, Ireland and, later, Zimbabwe, and from 2014 it was opened to novelists of any nationality, which brought American writers into contention and produced Paul Beatty's win in 2016. It must be kept separate from the International Booker Prize, a distinct award for a book translated into English, in which the prize money is divided equally between the author and the translator — a distinction that matters because Indian writers have appeared on both lists for different reasons. Indian and Indian-origin winners of the Booker Prize itself include V. S. Naipaul, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai and Aravind Adiga; on the International Booker side, 'Tomb of Sand' by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, won in 2022. For the 2020 award the winner was Douglas Stuart's 'Shuggie Bain', a first novel about a childhood in Glasgow during the collapse of the city's industry, notable both as a debut and as only the second Scottish win in the prize's history to that date.

Awards are the most mechanical part of any current-affairs syllabus and therefore the most reliably scoring, provided they are prepared as lists with years attached. This paper alone asks about the Booker Prize, the Academy Awards, the Nobel Peace Prize and the Jnanpith within a span of a dozen questions, which tells a candidate exactly how much of the section is made of awards. The construction used here — four real winners of the same prize from different years — is the hardest version of the format and the one that punishes half-preparation most severely, because every option triggers a feeling of recognition. The countermeasure is a table rather than a paragraph: prize, year, winner, work, and one line about why the win was notable. The last column matters more than it looks, because the Commission often asks the derived question instead of the direct one — who was the first American to win the Booker, who is the youngest winner, who won it twice — and those answers all come from the same table. Note finally that MPSC draws from the year before the paper as well as the year of the paper: this paper was written in January 2022 and asks about the 2020 award, so a candidate who revises only the most recent cycle will be caught short.

• The 2020 Booker Prize was won by 'Shuggie Bain', a debut novel by Douglas Stuart, set in post-industrial Glasgow between 1981 and 1992 and following a boy growing up with his alcoholic mother Agnes.
• Stuart was the second Scottish winner of the prize in what was then its fifty-one-year history, and the novel is closely drawn from his own childhood.
• 'The Sellout' by Paul Beatty won in 2016 and made him the first American writer to take the prize, which became possible only after eligibility was widened in 2014 from Commonwealth, Irish and Zimbabwean writers to any novelist writing in English.
• 'The Luminaries' by Eleanor Catton won in 2013; she was the youngest winner at twenty-eight and the novel was the longest ever to win.
• 'Bring Up the Bodies' by Hilary Mantel won in 2012, following 'Wolf Hall' in 2009, making her the first woman and the first British author to win the Booker twice; the English column prints the title in lower case as 'Bring up the bodies'; the Marathi transliterates all four titles, so the capitalisation slip does not reach that column.

• Answering from recognition rather than from the year. All four options in this question are genuine Booker winners, so recognising a title proves nothing at all
• Confusing the Booker Prize with the International Booker Prize. The first is for a novel written in English, the second for a translated work, with the money shared between author and translator
• Revising only the most recent award cycle. This paper was written in January 2022 and asks about the 2020 prize
• Treating a printed title as evidence about the book. The paper sets 'Bring up the bodies' in lower case where the published title capitalises it, and the difference is a printing matter only

Literary prizes appear in MPSC's current-affairs section every year, and the Booker is the most frequently used of the international ones. The direct form gives the year and asks for the book or the author; the reverse form gives the book and asks for the year or the prize. A third form asks a derived fact — the first American winner, the youngest winner, the only writer to win twice, the first novel in an Indian language to take the International Booker — and it is answerable only from a table that carries a note against each entry. Expect an Indian angle wherever one exists, because the Commission prefers questions with an Indian connection, and expect the same paper to test two or three different awards, as this one does. The efficient preparation is a single page updated through the year: date, award, winner, work, one distinguishing fact.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The novel 'Shuggie Bain', which won the Booker Prize in 2020, was written by which of the following authors ?

  • (a)Douglas Stuart
  • (b)Paul Beatty
  • (c)Hilary Mantel
  • (d)Eleanor Catton

  Answer(a) Douglas Stuart. 'Shuggie Bain' was his first novel, set in Glasgow between 1981 and 1992 as the city's industry collapsed, and it made him the second Scottish writer to win the prize. The other three are all Booker winners of different years — Paul Beatty took the 2016 prize with 'The Sellout' and was the first American to win it, Eleanor Catton the 2013 prize with 'The Luminaries' as the youngest ever winner, and Hilary Mantel the 2012 prize with 'Bring Up the Bodies' after 'Wolf Hall' in 2009.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which of the following statements about the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize is correct ?

  • (a)Both are awarded for novels written originally in English
  • (b)The International Booker Prize is for a work translated into English, and its money is shared equally between the author and the translator
  • (c)The Booker Prize is open only to writers from Commonwealth countries
  • (d)The International Booker Prize is awarded once every two years for a body of work

  Answer(b) The International Booker Prize is for a work translated into English, and its money is shared equally between the author and the translator. The Booker Prize proper is for a novel written originally in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, and since 2014 it has been open to writers of any nationality rather than only to Commonwealth, Irish and Zimbabwean authors — which is how an American writer came to win it in 2016. The award given every two years for a body of work was the older Man Booker International, replaced by the present annual, single-work format.