Booker Prize 2019 breaks rule, makes Evaristo joint winner of £50,000
- The 2019 Booker Prize did the unusual and gave the award to two joint winners, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo
- Atwood won for her book titled The Testaments, while Evaristo emerged a joint winner with Girl, Woman, Others
- With the development, the £50,000 (about N23m) money would have to be shared between the two writers
The 2019 Booker Prize has gone against its own rules as it awarded the prestigious prize to joint winners, Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo.
In its 30 years, this is the first time Booker will be taking the route of sharing the prize between two people.
Evaristo won the prize for her amazing novel titled Girl, Woman, Others, making her the first black woman to get it since its inception
Source: Getty Images
Atwood's winning with her book, The Testament, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, also makes her the oldest winner of the prize at 79.
In responding to the win, Atwood said it would have been disheartening if at her age she took all the prize and blocked the opportunity for a much younger writer to shine.
With the two winners emerging in this year's edition of the prize, they would have to split the £50,000 prize.
Source: Getty Images
When asked if she would have loved to take the whole prize, Evaristo said yes but that she is happy to be sharing the winning.
Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that three Nigerians made the prize's longlist on Wednesday, July 24.
The Nigerians on the list, among other 13 longlisted, are Oyinka Braithwaite, Bernardine Evaristo and Chigozie Obioma.
Evaristo is a British-Nigerian novelist who has written eight books. Her eighth book Girl, Woman, Other was the piece that got her on the list.
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Obioma's second book after The Fishermen got him on the list. He was longlisted for the book, An Ochestra of Minorities, a book many readers have praised as a work of genius.
Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, a crime fiction, gave her a place on the list. It is a book that tells a complex story of multilayered relationships.
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