By Mursi Saad El-Din The English literary world is astir these days over two issues. The first is within the English PEN over the topic of politics, some members being opposed to discussions of political problems while others believing that it is the task of writers to adopt a stand towards politics. The second issue is in connection with "Who'd be a Booker Judge" as dealt with by Boyd Tonkin, himself a member of the panel of judges in 1999. His article in The Independent describes what happens behind the scenes among the judges and providing details of what he calls "the infamous war" between runners-up, losers and judges. Although according to Tonkin, judging the Booker Prize is like childbirth -- "Lots of people want to do it. Lots of people want to have done it. But no one in their right mind would want to be doing it at any single moment in their life," he says -- yet he says he would do it again "like a shot". When all is said and done, he says, "we made a sound decision -- a decision that mattered to the author, the culture and the reading public." Tonkin explains that the reading of entries takes between five to six months. Normally the judges are expected to read around 130 novels between April and October. In his opinion, 80 to 90 books merited serious attention from first page to last while some novels he even read three times. The judge is offered �3000 which, according to Tonkin, "amounts to an hourly rate that the most desperate off-the-books burger-flipper would turn down with contempt". What emerges from Tonkin's account is that there are no set rules or directives for the judges. "No Booker Judge must sign a gagging order. No former agreement forbids leaks, hints, or even full media discussions of what takes place in judges' meetings," he says, adding that those who run the Booker "hanker after media coverage. If news of differences among the judges is leaked so much the better. But while this is good for Booker administration, it is bad for the integrity and renown of the prize." Tonkin then proceeds into a virulent attack of the appointed chairman of this year's judges, John Sutherland, professor of modern English literature at University College. Sutherland, he writes, is "an inaccurate and impenitent leaker of our panel discussions [who] has been rewarded for his imprecisions by elevation to the chairman's role." When Sutherland was with Tonkin a member of the 1999 panel, he wrote an article in The Guardian reporting the proceedings on the panel's meetings. The trouble is, Tonkin goes on to say, that his version struck a majority of his fellow judges as far more fictional than factual. A glaring example was what Sutherland wrote about Ahdaf Soueif, and her "Egyptian epic" short- listed for the prize. Sutherland claimed that "its anti-Zionist sentiments made some members of the committee slightly uneasy." "As far as I know," retorts Tonkin, "nothing was ever said to this effect. Besides, to label Soueif's nuanced portrait of the conflicting ideas that challenged British domination in early 20th century Egypt as an anti- Zionist book is itself a rather ugly misrepresentation." Tonkin then goes on to give examples of the conflicts that were created among members of the panel, or between judges, media and authors, painting a picture of what goes on behind the scenes, making one wonder, among other considerations, how many of the Booker winners really deserved the prize.
