Anne Enright’s The Gathering wins Booker Prize
Prashant Rao

LONDON—Irishwoman Anne Enright was awarded the Man Booker Prize for Fiction, one of the literary world’s most prestigious awards, for her family epic “The Gathering” on Tuesday.
The 45-year-old beat favourites Ian McEwan, who won the award in 1998, and Lloyd Jones to the 50,000-pound (72,000-euro, 102,000-dollar) prize, awarded to the best work of fiction by an author from the Commonwealth or the Republic of Ireland.
“The Gathering”, Enright’s fourth novel, traces sexual hurt and redemption through three generations, showing how memories warp and family secrets fester. The book’s narrator, Veronica Hegarty, traces her family history after her brother, Liam, commits suicide by walking into the sea, hoping to make sense of his death.
“When people pick up a book they may want something happy that will cheer them up,” Enright said. “In that case, they shouldn’t really pick up my book ... it is the intellectual equivalent of a Hollywood weepie.”
She later told the BBC: “Why go to sad films? Why read a sad book? ... It releases something, or enables something.” Howard Davies, the chair of the judging panel for the prize, hailed the novel as “a powerful, uncomfortable and, at times, angry book.” “We think she is an impressive novelist, we expect to hear a lot more from her. “The book is powerful, it pulls you along and it has an absolutely brilliant ending. It has one of the best last sentences of any novel I have ever read.”
The judges had spent more than two hours deliberating, and Davies said that it had been a “tight decision”, but added that it was eventually unanimous. Aside from Enright’s work, the five books that made the prize’s shortlist were “On Chesil Beach” by Britain’s McEwan; “Mister Pip” by New Zealander Jones; “Animal’s People” by Indra Sinha, “Darkmans” by Britain’s Nicola Barker, and “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” by British-Pakistani Mohsin Hamid.
Of the six, only McEwan had been nominated previous to this year. “Since the shortlist was announced, people have been so fantastic, especially in Ireland,” Enright told the BBC.