Empire of the Sun or Hotel du Lac: The Booker vs the Bookies | The Booker Prize Podcast, Episode 37

In 1984, many assumed that J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun had the Booker Prize in the bag. But actually, it was Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac that clinched the prize in the end. This week, we're exploring the bookies' favourite vs the Booker winner to ask which book should have won: Brookner's short, quiet novel set in a genteel Swiss hotel or Ballard's long and action-packed autobiographical epic set in wartime Shanghai.
In this episode Jo and James:
- Discuss the Booker Prize 1984 shortlist
- Share a brief biography of Anita Brookner
- Summarise the plot of Anita Brookner's Hotel du Lac
- Explore the characters in Brookner's novel
- Share a brief biography of J.G. Ballard
- Summarise the plot of Empire of the Sun
- Who should read these books
- Discuss their thoughts on both novels and which should have won the Booker Prize 1984
Reading list:
- Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard: thebookerprize...
- Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner: thebookerprize...
- Small World by David Lodge: thebookerprize...
- Flaubert's Parrot by Julian Barnes: thebookerprize...
- In Custody by Anita Desai: thebookerprize...
- According to Mark by Penelope Lively: thebookerprize...
A full transcript of the episode is available at our website: thebookerprize...
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The Booker Prize is the leading literary award in the English speaking world, and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best novel of the year written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
Previous winners include The Testaments by Margaret Atwood, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie, The Promise by Damon Galgut, Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally, Life of Pi by Yann Martel, The Bone People by Keri Hulme and many more.
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