Bond Inspired the Booker--Who Knew?!

With the 2011 long list just announced, I wanted to discover what or who inspired the Man Booker Prize. And this is what I found--who knew?!

The Booker Prize can trace its origin, through quirks of history and the imaginativeness of one individual, to James Bond and the attainment of political freedom in Guyana.

The imaginative individual was a Scotsman called Jock Campbell (later Lord Campbell of Eskan) who in 1945 became Managing Director of the Booker company, which then had most of its business in Guyana. A man of enormous energy, intelligence and human understanding, Campbell was deeply conscious of the wrongs and hurts of slavery and the complex relationships of the African and East Indian populations in Guyana.

Jock Campbell, who was an active supporter of independence movements, soon transformed Booker from a typical colonial business into a thriving enterprise esteemed by employees, shareholders and customers. At the same time, realising that an expatriate-owned business producing around 35% of Guyana’s gross domestic product had a limited future, Campbell turned his attention to the UK, where he extended Booker’s business into rum marketing, food distribution, engineering, shipping and other activities.

One day, Jock learned that Ian Fleming, an old friend and golfing partner, had been given not much more than a year to live. Over a drink at the ‘nineteenth hole’, Fleming sought Campbell’s advice about securing his estate for his family by selling his interest in the James Bond novels.
Income tax at that time, at Fleming’s level of income, was almost equivalent to confiscation. Jock recommended a merchant bank, but in his bath next morning thought to himself: ‘Wait a moment. I know a knowledgeable tax accountant and a tax lawyer. Couldn’t Booker make something of this?’ The consequent deal was to the substantial advantage of both Ian Fleming and Booker plc and to the substantial disadvantage of The Exchequer.

This was the beginning of Booker’s ‘Authors’ Division’ which, taking advantage of a loophole in the UK Finance Act, soon added to its portfolio the copyrights of a galaxy of writers, including Agatha Christie, Dennis Wheatley, Georgette Heyer, Robert Bolt and Harold Pinter.

As Tom Maschler relates elsewhere, The Booker Prize took its inspiration from France’s Prix Goncourt. Seventeen years later, Le Figaro referred to the Goncourt as the ‘French Booker’. The wheel had turned full circle. Admittedly, our motives were somewhat different from those of the Prix Goncourt. Jock Campbell had gathered around him a number of young executives who combined their business ambitions with intellectual interest. Jock himself had read widely and voraciously. As a young man, his prowess in solving Torquemada’s crossword puzzles in The Observer led to his being asked by Torquemada’s widow to edit a book of his 112 best puzzles. But the main reasoning was commercial. The investments in the Author’s Division were making very high returns. Also, the further publicity might contribute to publicising Booker’s growing investments in the UK as they withdrew from the developing world.

From: http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1014