• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Login
  • Register

Publishers Lunch

The Publishing Industry's Daily Essential Read

  • Publishers Marketplace
  • Site Guide
  • Help

Silicon Valley Foundation Crankstart Is New Booker Prize Funder

February 27, 2019
By Michael Cader

The flicker of false (and you might say falsely-targeted) hope in the UK trade that a new sponsor for the Booker Prize might let them remove Americans from contention has probably been extinguished — since the new sponsors live in California. (The Booker Foundation insists, “A sponsor or funder has no say over the rules.”) Sequoia Capital billionaire partner Michael Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman, both writers and philanthropists, have agreed to fund the prizes for at least five years starting June 1, after the 2019 International Booker winner is announced, through Crankstart, their charitable foundation.

They will spare everyone calling them the Crankstart Booker Prizes (which we kind of like), and the awards will revert to the Booker name alone. (Truth be told we never used the Man Group’s name as part of our references to the awards anyway.)

Moritz says in the announcement, “Neither of us can imagine a day where we don’t spend time reading a book. The Booker Prizes are ways of spreading the word about the insights, discoveries, pleasures and joy that spring from great fiction. These days I’m a global traveller but, just like The Booker, I was born in Britain and before coming to America was reared on English literature. Harriet and I feel fortunate to be able to support prizes that together celebrate the best fiction in the world.”

Filed Under: Awards, Free

sidebar

Primary Free Sidebar

Login


Forgot password
Quick Pass users click here to log in
Get Full Access
The publishing industry's essential daily read

Each Publishers Lunch Deluxe subscription includes full access to our searchable multi-year archive of industry news, a nightly email reporting 10 to 50 deal transactions, and our database of industry contacts, scripts, and posting privileges.

Learn More

RSS Automat

  • Rupert Murdoch to Retire from News Corp and Fox Boards September 21, 2023 NYT
  • OpenAI's New DALL-E3 Lets Artists Opt-Out of Future Training; Rejects Request to Mimic the Style of Living Artists September 20, 2023 TechCrunch
  • Another Response to AI-Generated Books: KDP Lowers Limit On Number of Titles You Can Create, "To Help Protect Against Abuse" September 18, 2023 KDP Forum
  • TikTok (and Instagram) Stars Sell Cookbooks September 18, 2023 NYT
  • Actor and UK Harry Potter Audiobook Narrator Stephen Fry Demonstrates How His Voice Was Copied By AI Without Permission September 18, 2023 Deadline
  • Neal Sofman, Legend of Bay Area Independent Booksellers, dies at 75 September 15, 2023 SF Chronicle
  • Major Textbook Publishers Trying Suing Shadow Library LibGen Again September 15, 2023 Torrent Freak
  • Deesha Philyaw Has Seven-Figure Deal with Mariner for "The True Confessions of First Lady Freeman" in 2025 and "Girl, Look" September 14, 2023 AP
  • Copyright Office Doubles Down on Declining to Register Award-Winning Midjourney-Created AI Art September 12, 2023 Copyright Review Board document
  • Sarah Weinman on How Richard Osman Found His Way to Mysteries and Success: "The simple answer is that they are really good" September 12, 2023 Esquire
© 2023 Publishers Lunch. All Rights Reserved.