The Irish author, who won the Booker Prize in 2005 for The Sea, has been heavily criticised on social media for saying “I despise this ‘woke’ movement” in an interview for the Hay Festival Winter Weekend. Absolutely not.”This year’s Booker Prize was won by Douglas Stuart, a gay Scottish-American writer. In his Hay interview, Banville spoke about having to educate his daughter about the extent of censorship in 1950s Ireland. Banville wrote back: “Summoned, one shuffles guiltily into the department of trivia.”Yet Sutherland’s casting vote secured Banville the prize. The Booker Prize is a prize to keep people interested in fiction, in buying fiction.

Source: The Irish Times December 02, 2020 06:00 UTC