Opening up Booker Prize to those outside Commonwealth countries

There’s nothing wrong about clubs having strict membership rules. After all, their primary purpose is not so much to hang out with like-minded people but to keep unlike-minded folks out. The issue of one quaint club called the Commonwealth pops up every once in a while. With the Booker Prize winner announced on Tuesday, the matter of the prize being opened up to writers outside Commonwealth countries and Ireland has got the anachronism out in the sun again.

Made up of countries once ruled by the British Empire, the Commonwealth’s only identity is that of a club of ex-colonies with Britain as its president for life. ( Rwanda and Mozambique, former German and French colonies, joining the Commonwealth are odd exceptions to the rule.) From this year, the Booker allows the citizen of any country writing a novel in English and published by a UK publisher — both kosher club rules — to make a bid. This is good as exclusion isn’t based on history but language and market. The Australian two-time Booker winner Peter Carey dislikes the prize now open to Americans who have their own exclusive Pulitzer — or, by extension, to Indians who have their Sahitya Akademi Awards. But by allowing all English language writers in, the Booker has gained more value by unhitching its pony from that walking dodo that is the Dead Empire’s Club.