Throw the Booker at her!

There’s no doubt Hilary Mantel’s second Booker is well-deserved. I have to admit I was hoping Will Self would win. I am very much taken by his stimulating High Modernist style which puts “Umbrella” in my view a place on the same shelf as Joyce’s “Ulysses”. I will bet it is on many an MA or even BA degree syllabus within a year or two. Even so, it might be worth a modest bet on Hilary winning a third Booker with her third volume still to appear. If she does, she should get to keep it and we should call the prize the Woman Booker from then on, or until a male author wins three in a row.