24 October 2016
Paul Beatty may be the first American to win the Man Booker prize, after a rule change three years ago that made authors of any nationality eligible for the £50,000 award, so long as they were writing in English and published in the UK. But he very nearly wasn't published in Britain at all. Beatty calls his fourth novel "a hard sell" for UK publishers. His rumbustious, lyrically poetic novel was turned down, his agent confirms, by no fewer than 18 publishers. And then, finally, a small independent called Oneworld - founded by a husband-and-wife team in 1986 - took it up. The company is celebrating the unusual achievement of a second consecutive Man Booker win, because it also published Marlon James's A History of Seven Killings.
