Howard Jacobson wins Booker prize 2010 for The Finkler Question | Books | The Guardian Howard Jacobson wins Booker prize 2010 for The Finkler Question • Jacobson's The Finkler Question comes out top in 3-2 vote • Andrew Motion praises 'clever, complicated, wise' novel Tuesday 12 October 2010 16.48 EDT First published on Tuesday 12 October 2010 16.48 EDT Close This article is 6 years old Howard Jacobson's laugh-out-loud exploration of Jewishness, The Finkler Question , last night became the first unashamedly comic novel to win the Man Booker prize in its 42-year history. There will be cries of "about time too" for a funny and warm writer, now 68, who has long been highly regarded but unrewarded with major literary prizes. The Booker prize chairman, Sir Andrew Motion, said it was "quite amazing" that this was the first time Jacobson had been shortlisted. But he was not, in any way, being rewarded because it was his turn. "It never came into our minds," he said.

"Having said that, there is a particular pleasure in seeing somebody who is that good finally getting his just deserts." Jacobson admitted he had waited a long time and, yes, there had been bitterness. "I have been wanting to win the Booker prize from the start. I don't think I'm alone in that, it's such a fantastic prize. It was beginning to look like I was the novelist that never ever won the Booker prize. "I have been increasingly talked about as underrated and I'm so sick of being described as the underrated Howard Jacobson . So the thought that's gone forever, is wonderful." Jacobson claimed he was going to spend his £50,000 prize money on a handbag for his wife. "Have you seen the price of handbags?" Motion said the decision was simple. "It won because it was the best book. You expect a book by Howard Jacobson to be very clever and very funny and it is both those things. But it is also, in a very interesting way, a very sad, melancholic book. It is comic, it is laughter, but it is laughter in the dark." Motion agreed it is a comic novel but said it was much more.

It was "absolutely a book for grownups, for people who understand that comedy and tragedy are linked". It will be a sweet victory for the Manchester-born Jacobson, who lamented the fact that comic fiction was not taken more seriously in the Guardian Saturday Review last weekend. "There is a fear of comedy in the novel today," he wrote. "When did you last see the word 'funny' on the jacket of a serious novel?" Motion said times were changing and while he would go to music gigs when young, his children now go to comedy gigs. "The place of comedy in society has changed – so maybe we are more accommodating of it than we have ever been in the past. However, The Finkler Question should not, he said, be seen as something that was "relentlessly middle-brow, or easy-peasy" because it was comic. "It is much cleverer and more complicated and about much more difficult things than it immediately lets you know.

Several people have used the word wise, and that's a good word." The book – Jacobson's 11th – follows the lives of three friends, Julian Treslove, Sam Finkler and Libor Sevick, and tackles not just what it is to be a British Jew, but also the nature of friendship itself. Published by Bloomsbury, it beat a strong field including a novel that had unexpectedly become odds-on favourite with the bookmakers. Ladbrokes even stopped taking bets last week because of the betting patterns surrounding Tom McCarthy's C. The others which missed out were Emma Donoghue's Room, Damon Galgut's In a Strange Room, Andrea Levy's The Long Song and Peter Carey's Olivier and Parrot in America. Victory for Carey would have made him the only three-time winner and hopes had been high, with the Australian novelist believing it his best work and Motion praising him as a modern-day Dickens. Jacobson, meanwhile, has described himself as "a Jewish Jane Austen" but only, he said last night, because he was sick of others calling him the "English Philip Roth". He added: "People think I'm steeped in the American Jewish novel. I'm not.

I've read them. I admire them. But I'm steeped in English lit, my favourite writer is Dr Johnson, my favourite comic writer is Dickens." Jacobson's victory means he is the oldest winner since William Golding won in 1980, aged 69, for Rites of Passage. The judges were much brisker than in previous years in taking just an hour to agree Jacobson should win, with a 3-2 split. "It was a pretty intense hour. It wasn't unanimous but it was a decision that everybody is entirely happy with," said Motion. He declined to say which side he was on or which book just missed out: "I don't want that person to go to bed tonight and eat their pillow." The judges, who this year also included dancer Deborah Bull, journalist Rosie Blau, broadcaster Tom Sutcliffe and writer Frances Wilson, read more than 140 novels before discarding books by big hitters including Martin Amis, Ian McEwan and Salman Rushdie. There was controversy when the longlist came out because it included Christos Tsiolkas's The Slap, which chronicled the lives of often unpleasant and misogynistic suburban Australians.

The Booker judges contended that he was writing about misogynists rather than it being a misogynistic novel. The victory will mean a sharp spike in sales but Jacobson admitted it might also affect his next book. "I was well into an extremely comic book with no sadness in it – it was looking like one of the funniest things I'd ever done - about a writer enjoying no success whatsoever. I'm in a bit of schtuck with this one." • This article was amended on 13 October 2010. The original referred to Christian Tsiolkas. This has been corrected. In the wake of his 2010 Booker prize win, Howard Jacobson talks to Andrew Dickson about our need for comedy in fiction, and chair of judges Andrew Motion explains the reasons behind their choice Published: 13 Oct 2010 The Finkler Question's author is far from the only Jewish novelist in this country – so where did all the other stories about Jewishness go?

Published: 15 Oct 2010 Claire Armitstead, Guardian literary editor, Sarah Crown, editor of the Guardian/books, and Benedicte Page of the Bookseller discuss Howard Jacobson's victory at this year's Man Booker prize with his novel, The Finkler Question Published: 12 Oct 2010 The Man Booker prizewinner talks to Stuart Jeffries about handbags, making women laugh and his duty as a Jew Published: 13 Oct 2010 The Finkler Question wins The 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction | Man Investments Australia The Finkler Question wins The 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction Speak to one of our representatives toll free on 1800 222 355 About Us The Finkler Question wins The 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction 12 October 2010 Howard Jacobson eventually triumphs with Man Booker Prize Howard Jacobson is tonight (Tuesday 12 October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Finkler Question, published by Bloomsbury.

London author and columnist Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice for the prize, in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and in 2002 for Who's Sorry Now, but has never before been shortlisted. The Finkler Question is a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today. Said to have 'some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language', The Finkler Question has been described as 'wonderful' and 'richly satisfying' and as a novel of 'full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding'. This is the third Man Booker winner published by Bloomsbury. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood won the prize in 2000 and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje in 1992.

The publisher has had six shortlisted books including Cats Eye (1989), Alias Grace (1996) and Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood, Lies of Silence (1990) by Brian Moore, Crossing the River (1993) by Carol Phillips and The Map of Love (1999) by Ahdaf Soueif. Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of the judges, made the announcement, which was broadcast by the BBC from the awards dinner at London's Guildhall. Peter Clarke, Chief Executive of Man, presented Howard Jacobson with a cheque for £50,000. Andrew Motion comments 'The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize.' Over and above his prize of £50,000, Howard Jacobson can expect a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was: Andrew Motion (Chair), former Poet Laureate; Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic. Sales of the books longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize have been stronger than ever before, with sales over 45% higher than last year. The Winner The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson Published by Bloomsbury, at £18.99 Funny, furious and unflinching, The Finkler Question is a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship, they've never quite lost touch with each other – or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick.

Both Libor and Sam are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor 's apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. An award-winning novelist and critic, Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester on 25 August 1942 and read English at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis. He taught at the University of Sydney, Selwyn College, Cambridge and Wolverhampton Polytechnic – the inspiration for his first novel, Coming From Behind. He has been longlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Kalooki Nights in 2006 and Who's Sorry Now? in 2002. Other novels include The Mighty Walzer and The Act of Love. Howard Jacobson writes a weekly column for the Independent and has written and presented several documentaries for television. He lives in London.

For further information please contact Anya Rosenberg at Bloomsbury Tel: 020 7494 6008, email: anya.rosenberg@bloomsbury.com , mob: 07540 838 369 Notes to Editors: Howard Jacobson is available for interview. Please contact Anya Rosenberg at Bloomsbury on tel: 020 7494 6008, email: anya.rosenberg@bloomsbury.com , mob: 07540 838 369 The winner of the Man Booker Prize was chosen from 138 entries, including 14 called in by the judges. The 2010 shortlisted titles were: Author C Jonathan Cape – Random House For the 2010 Man Booker Prize, UK publishers were eligible to submit two full-length novels published between 1 October 2009 and 30 September 2010. In addition any title by an author who has previously won the Booker or Man Booker Prize may be submitted. Any book by an author who has been shortlisted within the last ten years is also entitled to automatic entry.

The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969, and Man was announced as the sponsor of the prize in April 2002, with a five year extension agreed in 2006. For a full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges visit the website: . It is a major media and information tool which is accessed worldwide with up to the minute information about both the annual Man Booker Prize and the biennial Man Booker International Prize. Featuring news, interviews and written pieces as well as a lively forum and full history archive of the prize, the site is used by journalists, bloggers and general members of the public on a daily basis. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate) won the Man Booker Prize 2009. It has now sold over half a million copies in the UK alone. Rights have been sold in 37 countries world-wide. The Man Booker Prize App is free to download from the App Store to an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch and is the UK's first app for a literary prize. Free audio extracts of all 13 of the longlisted titles can now be downloaded to mobile phones via GoSpoken The Man Booker Prize is sponsored by Man.

Man is a world-leading alternative investment management business. With a broad range of funds for institutional and private investors globally, it is known for its performance, innovative product design and investor service. Man manages around $39.5 billion. The original business was founded in 1783. Today, Man is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index with a market capitalisation of around £4 billion. Man is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the FTSE4Good Index. Man also supports many awards, charities and initiatives around the world, including sponsorship of the Man Booker literary prizes. Man supports many awards, charities and initiatives around the world, including sponsorship of the Man Booker literary prizes. In the year to March 2010 the Man Charitable Trust continued to fund innovative projects for children and adults that improve literacy. Donations were made to support the "Every Child a Reader" reading recovery programme, Dyslexia Action, The Mayor's Fund for London, National Literacy Trust and St Petrock's (Exeter).

The Trust also supports the RNIB Talking Books Service, enabling the production and distribution of Talking Book formats of the shortlisted titles of the Man Booker Prize Further information can be found at The Booker Prize Foundation is a registered charity (no 1090049) which, since 2002, has been responsible for the award of the prize. The trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation are former Chairman of Booker plc, Jonathan Taylor CBE (Chair); Lord Baker of Dorking CH; playwright and President of the Royal Literary Fund, Sir Ronald Harwood CBE; former Chair of the British Council, Baroness Kennedy QC; broadcaster, James Naughtie; biographer, Victoria Glendinning; writer, Baroness Neuberger DBE and former Finance Director of Rentokil plc, Christopher Pearce. Martyn Goff CBE, former Man Booker Prize administrator, is President of the Foundation and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is a Vice President. The Advisory Committee, which advises on any changes to the rules and on the selection of the judges, represents all sides of the book world.

Its members are: Ion Trewin, Chair (Literary Director, Man Booker Prizes); Richard Cable, publisher; Mark Chilton, Company Secretary, Booker Ltd; Peter Clarke, Chief Executive, Man, Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust; Maggie Fergusson, writer and Secretary of the Royal Society of Literature; Basil Comely, BBC TV; Derek Johns, literary agent; Peter Kemp, Chief Fiction Reviewer, The Sunday Times; Dominic Myers, Managing Director of Waterstone's; Nigel Newton, publisher; Fiammetta Rocco, literary editor, The Economist (Man Booker International Prize administrator); Eve Smith (Company Secretary, the Booker Prize Foundation); and Robert Topping; Topping & Company Booksellers. Booker is the UK's leading food wholesaler with over 170 branches nationwide. It serves over 350,000 independent businesses. The Booker Prize Archive was given on loan in 2003 to Oxford Brookes University where it now resides. Blind and partially sighted people can now read any of the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize on the day the winner is announced.

The production of the books in braille and giant print is funded by the Booker Prize Foundation, and the Man Group PLC Charitable Trust pays separately for the production of Talking Books. The Foundation is also working with the Sound Archive of the British Library on its 'National Life Stories - Authors' Lives' project by funding archive interviews with shortlisted authors. For all press enquiries please contact: Jill Cotton or Lucy Chavasse at Colman Getty Tel: 020 7631 2666 Man Booker Prize: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson - extract - Telegraph Booker Prize Man Booker Prize: The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson - extract Howard Jacobson last night won the Man Booker prize for 'The Finkler Question', his coruscating comic novel about Jewishness. Here is the opening chapter Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker prize for 'The Finkler Question' Photo: ANDREW CROWLEY 9:50PM BST 12 Oct 2010 He should have seen it coming. His life had been one mishap after another. So he should have been prepared for this one. He was a man who saw things coming.

Not shadowy premonitions before and after sleep, but real and present dangers in the daylit world. Lamp posts and trees reared up at him, splintering his shins. Speeding cars lost control and rode on to the footpath leaving him lying in a pile of torn tissue and mangled bones. Sharp objects dropped from scaffolding and pierced his skull. Women worst of all. When a woman of the sort Julian Treslove found beautiful crossed his path it wasn't his body that took the force but his mind. She shattered his calm. True, he had no calm, but she shattered whatever calm there was to look forward to in the future. She was the future. Related Articles Zoo Time by Howard Jacobson: review 06 Sep 2012 People who see what's coming have faulty chronology, that is all. Treslove's clocks were all wrong.

He no sooner saw the woman than he saw the aftermath of her – his marriage proposal and her acceptance, the home they would set up together, the drawn rich silk curtains leaking purple light, the bed sheets billowing like clouds, the wisp of aromatic smoke winding from the chimney – only for every wrack of it – its lattice of crimson roof tiles, its gables and dormer windows, his happiness, his future – to come crashing down on him in the moment of her walking past. She didn't leave him for another man, or tell him she was sick of him and of their life together, she passed away in a perfected dream of tragic love – consumptive, wet-eyelashed, and as often as not singing her goodbyes to him in phrases borrowed from popular Italian opera. There was no child. Children spoilt the story. Between the rearing lamp posts and the falling masonry he would sometimes catch himself rehearsing his last words to her – also as often as not borrowed from the popular Italian operas – as though time had concertinaed, his heart had smashed, and she was dying even before he had met her.

There was something exquisite to Treslove in the presentiment of a woman he loved expiring in his arms. On occasions he died in hers, but her dying in his was better. It was how he knew he was in love: no presentiment of her expiry, no proposal. That was the poetry of his life. In reality it had all been women accusing him of stifling their creativity and walking out on him. In reality there had even been children. But beyond the reality something beckoned. On a school holiday in Barcelona he paid a gypsy fortune-teller to read his hand. "I see a woman," she told him. Treslove was excited. "Is she beautiful?" "To me, no," the gypsy told him. "But to youe_SLps maybe. I also see danger." Treslove was more excited still. "How will I know when I have met her?" "You will know." "Does she have a name?" "As a rule, names are extra," the gypsy said, bending back his thumb. "But I will make an exception for you because you are young. I see a Juno – do you know a Juno?" She pronounced it "Huno". But only when she remembered.

Treslove closed one eye. Juno? Did he know a Juno? Did anyone know a Juno? No, sorry, no, he didn't. But he knew a June. "No, no, bigger than June." She seemed annoyed with him for not being able to do bigger than June. "Judy Julies Judith. Do you know a Judith?" Hudith. Treslove shook his head. But he liked the sound of it – Julian and Judith. Hulian and Hudith Treslove. "Well, she's waiting for you, this Julie or Judith or Juno I do still see a Juno." Treslove closed his other eye. Juno, Junos "How long will she wait?" he asked. "As long as it takes you to find her." Treslove imagined himself looking, searching the seven seas. "You said you see danger. How is she dangerous?" He saw her rearing up at him, with a knife to his throat – Addio, mio bello, addio. "I did not say it was she who was dangerous. Only that I saw danger. It might be you who is dangerous to her.

Or some other person who is dangerous to both of you." "So should I avoid her?" Treslove asked. She shuddered a fortune-teller's shudder. "You cannot avoid her." She was beautiful herself. At least in Treslove's eyes. Emaciated and tragic with gold hooped earrings and a trace, he thought, of a West Midlands accent. But for the accent he would have been in love with her. She didn't tell him anything he didn't already know. Someone, something, was in store for him. Something of more moment than a mishap. He was framed for calamity and sadness but was always somewhere else when either struck. Once, a tree fell and crushed a person walking just a half a yard behind him. Treslove heard the cry and wondered whether it was his own. He missed a berserk gunman on the London Underground by the length of a single carriage. He wasn't even interviewed by the police.

And a girl he had loved with a schoolboy's hopeless longing – the daughter of one of his father's friends, an angel with skin as fine as late-summer rose petals and eyes that seemed forever wet – died of leukaemia in her fourteenth year while Treslove was in Barcelona having his fortune told. His family did not call him back for her final hours or even for the funeral. They did not want to spoil his holiday, they told him, but the truth was they did not trust his fortitude. People who knew Treslove thought twice about inviting him to a deathbed or a burial. So life was still all his to lose. He was, at forty-nine, in good physical shape, had not suffered a bruise since falling against his mother's knee in infancy, and was yet to be made a widower. To his knowledge, not a woman he had loved or known sexually had died, few having stayed long enough with him anyway for their dying to make a moving finale to anything that could be called a grand affair. It gave him a preternaturally youthful look – this unconsummated expectation of tragic event. The look which people born again into their faith sometimes acquire.

'The Finkler Question' (Bloomsbury) is available for £16.99 plus £1.25 p&p from Telegraph Books on 0844 871 1515 or Howard Jacobson on His Booker Prize - The New York Times The New York Times Books |Booker Prize Winner’s Jewish Question Search Continue reading the main story LONDON — A funny thing happened when Howard Jacobson won the Man Booker Prize last Tuesday. Instead of the traditional audience reaction — euphoria from the winner’s entourage, anemic clapping underpinned by envy and bitterness from everyone else — the announcement, over dinner at the Guildhall here, was greeted by loud, sustained applause. A smattering of people who were not even related to Mr. Jacobson stood and cheered. “I think it’s that I’m someone who’s been around for a long time,” Mr. Jacobson, exhausted but excited, said in an interview two days after. “There was also the feeling that, ‘Thank God an old man’s won it.’ ” (He is 68). The winning book, “The Finkler Question,” is Mr.

Jacobson’s 11th novel; it was published in the United States as a paperback original by Bloomsbury on the same day that the prize was announced. It is an unusual Booker choice, both because it delves into the heart of the British Jewish experience, something that few contemporary British novels try to do, and because it is, on its surface at least, so ebulliently comic. It tells the story of three friends, two Jewish and one, Julian Treslove, who longs to be. When Treslove is attacked by a mugger who mutters something like, “You’re Jules,” or possibly, “You Jew!,” the experience sends him on a long exploration of the nature of Jewishness, culturally, socially and politically. He grapples with questions like, What makes someone Jewish? Is it anti-Semitic to make generalizations about what makes someone Jewish? Why are British Jews so much more open and warm than British non-Jews? “Don’t idealize us,” his new girlfriend, Hephzibah Weizenbaum, warns. “Why not?” he asks. “For all the usual reasons.

And don’t marvel at our warmth.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story Meanwhile his friends argue endlessly about Israel, forever “examining and shredding each other’s evidence,” Mr. Jacobson writes. One of them, Sam Finkler, who writes pop-philosophy books, joins an anti-Zionist group called the ASHamed Jews — mercilessly lampooned by Mr. Jacobson — that meets regularly at the fashionable Groucho Club to denounce Israel’s foreign policy. “I think you’ve got to be one to get it,” Finkler’s wife explains to Julian. “Be one what?” he responds. “One of the ASHamed?” “A Jew. You’ve got to be a Jew to get why you’re ashamed of being a Jew.” Some readers have misunderstood. “People think they’re parodies of Jews who happen to disapprove of Israel,” Mr. Jacobson said of the ASHamed, sitting in his apartment in the Soho neighborhood here, his new Man Booker statuette gleaming behind him. “But they’re not. They’re parodies of Jews who parade their disapproval of Israel.” Andrew Motion, chairman of the Booker judges, said last week that the subtlety of Mr.

Jacobson’s writing, the way it mixes comedy and tragedy, had not, perhaps, been sufficiently appreciated before. “There is a particular pleasure in seeing somebody who is that good finally getting his just deserts,” he said. He added that “The Finkler Question” is “very clever and very funny,” as Mr. Jacobson’s work generally is. “But it is also, in a very interesting way, a very sad, melancholic book. It is comic, it is laughter — but it is laughter in the dark.” Photo Howard Jacobson, winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize and shown here at his home in central London, says he would prefer to be “the Jewish Jane Austen.” Credit Andrew Testa for The New York Times Indeed, there is an ominous undercurrent in the book in the form of a growing number of anti-Semitic attacks, mostly offstage, that shatter the complacency of characters who resist the notion of Jews as perpetual victims. Mr. Jacobson says that such incidents worry him too, and that some of the views in the cacophony of arguments and counterarguments in the book reflect his own opinions.

But mostly, he said, he adheres to the notion, as one of his characters says, that “as a Jew, I believe that every argument has a counterargument.” Mr. Jacobson said: “Once we accept there’s a constant to-ing and fro-ing of understanding and misunderstanding, all is possible. Here’s the wonder of the novel. The novel is the great fluid form in which all those possibilities flow in and flow out. Nothing is definite, nothing is finished, nothing is determined.” Mr. Jacobson grew up in working-class Manchester, to a father who worked as a children’s entertainer and who ran a market stall selling trinkets. Bright, bookish and intellectually ambitious, he studied English literature at Cambridge under the legendary F.R. Leavis . Please verify you're not a robot by clicking the box. Invalid email address. Please re-enter. You must select a newsletter to subscribe to. Sign Up “I’m an old-fashioned English lit. man,” he said. “Straight down the line — it’s George Eliot, it’s Dickens, it’s Dr. Johnson, it’s Jane Austen.” Advertisement Continue reading the main story At first, he said, he tried to emulate his heroes.

“I wanted to write the most obscure sentences you’ve ever seen and I wanted to write about, you know, the English country house experience,” he explained. “You see the problem. I didn’t get very far.” Academic in-fighting in the college where he took a teaching job led to his first novel, “Coming From Behind” (1983), a campus farce in the manner of David Lodge or Malcolm Bradbury, but with a Jewish hero. The book drew rave reviews. “And then I discovered I rather liked writing about Jews,” he said. “Everyone in my family was astounded.” He mimics their response: “You’re not interested in Jews!” “I was brought up a Jew, but you know that way of being Jewish — the New York way,” Mr. Jacobson continued. “We were stomach Jews, we were Jewish-joke Jews, we were bagel Jews. We didn’t go to synagogue. I’m frightened of synagogue to this day.

When I went to synagogue as a little boy, you’d go in and 70 little bald men with their prayer shawls would turn around and go, “Sh!” — he deploys the word as if spitting something out — “and it still happens now, the only difference being that now I’m older than they are.” Few contemporary novelists here write explicitly about the experience of Jews in Britain, a state of affairs that could be debated as exhaustively, and probably with as little resolution, as Treslove and his friends debate the issues that consume them in “The Finkler Question.” Because of his rare position in the literary landscape, Mr. Jacobson has been called the “English Philip Roth,” but he says he would prefer to be “the Jewish Jane Austen.” “I’m an English writer who happens to know about Jews and would like to write like Jane Austen, with a little bit of Yiddish,” he said. He also resists being defined as a purely humorous writer and, indeed, “The Finkler Question” ends on a note that is not humorous at all. “To me, being a comic novelist is obviously to be serious, too — what else is there to be comic about?” Mr.

Jacobson said. “But when I hear people call me a comic novelist, I want to scream, because they mean something different. I can call myself a comic novelist, though, because I know what I mean when I say it.” A version of this article appears in print on October 19, 2010, on Page C1 of the New York edition with the headline: Booker Prize Winner’s Jewish Question. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe Howard Jacobson wins Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question | National Post Howard Jacobson wins Man Booker Prize for The Finkler Question Mark Medley | October 12, 2010 4:57 PM ET StumbleUpon Once again, the oddsmakers got it wrong. Howard Jacobson, considered by many to be a longshot, has won the 2010 Man Booker Prize for his novel The Finkler Question. He was declared the winner at a Gala ceremony Tuesday night in London. The 68-year-old Manchester-born author and journalist had twice been longlisted for the prize: in 2002 for Who’s Sorry Now and in 2006 for Kalooki Nights.

The Finkler Question, a comic tale which begins with the mugging of a man named Julian Treslove who is coming home from a dinner with two old friends, is his eleventh work of fiction; he’s also written four works of non-fiction. He’s been described as both “a Jewish Jane Austen” and a “British Philip Roth.” “The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle,” said Andrew Motion, one of this year’s judges. “It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize.” The other finalists for the £50,000 (approximately $80,000) prize were Australia’s Peter Carey for Parrot and Olivier in America; Canada’s Emma Donoghue for Room; South Africa’s Damon Galgut for In a Strange Room; England’s Andrea Levy for The Long Song; and England’s Tom McCarthy for C.

They all receive £2,500 and a “designer-bound edition of their book.” Leading up to the announcement, McCarthy such a favourite to win the Booker that, last Wednesdsay, betting firm Ladbrokes suspended all betting on the prize after “borderline inexplicable” wagering on C. Besides Motion, Britain’s former Poet Laureate, the judges included biographer and critic Frances Wilson; journalist Tom Sutcliffe; literary editor of the Financial Times, Rosie Blau; and Deborah Bull, creative director of the Royal Opera House. Of the six finalists, only Carey had won the prize before, winning in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. He was also shortlisted in 1098 for Illywhacker. Jacobson’s win means there is still no writer to have won the prize three times. When the shortlist was announced in early September, much of the talk was on who failed to make the shortlist rather than who succeeded.

Those left off included Christos Tsiolkas, who won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for his novel The Slap, David Mitchell, whose fifth novel The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet was considered by many to be the frontrunner before being eliminated. Newfoundland’s Lisa Moore was also longlisted for her novel February, but was left off the shortlist. The Man Booker Prize is often recognized as the world’s most prestigious literary award, apart from perhaps only the Nobel Prize for Literature. Past winners include V. S. Naipaul, Iris Murdoch, Salman Rushdie, Kingsley Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, A. S. Byatt, Ian McEwan, J. M. Coetzee, and Michael Ondaatje, one of only three Canadians to win the prize. Yann Martel is the last Canadian to win the prize; he was awarded the Booker in 2002 for Life of Pi. Until this year, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake was the last Canadian novel to make the shortlist. She was nominated in 2003.

Hilary Mantel won the prize last year for her historical epic Wolf Hall, which fictionalized the life of Thomas Cromwell, a minister in the court of Henry VIII. Howard Jacobson wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 | The Man Booker Prizes Home / Howard Jacobson wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 Howard Jacobson wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 Howard Jacobson wins the Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2010 Published on Submitted by Natalie on Tue, 2010-10-12 11:31 Howard Jacobson is tonight (Tuesday 12 October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Finkler Question, published by Bloomsbury. London author and columnist Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice for the prize, in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and in 2002 for Who's Sorry Now, but has never before been shortlisted. The Finkler Question is a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today.

Said to have ‘some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language', The Finkler Question has been described as ‘wonderful' and ‘richly satisfying' and as a novel of ‘full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding'. This is the third Man Booker winner published by Bloomsbury. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood won the prize in 2000 and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje in 1992. The publisher has had six shortlisted books including Cats Eye (1989), Alias Grace (1996) and Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood, Lies of Silence (1990) by Brian Moore, Crossing the River (1993) by Caryl Phillips and The Map of Love (1999) by Ahdaf Soueif. Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of the judges, made the announcement, which was broadcast by the BBC from the awards dinner at London's Guildhall. Peter Clarke, Chief Executive of Man, presented Howard Jacobson with a cheque for £50,000.

Andrew Motion comments ‘The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize.' Over and above his prize of £50,000, Howard Jacobson can expect a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book. The judging panel for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was: Andrew Motion (Chair), former Poet Laureate; Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic. Sales of the books longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize have been stronger than ever before, with sales over 45% higher than last year.

The Winner The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson Published by Bloomsbury, at £18.99 Funny, furious and unflinching, The Finkler Question is a scorching story of friendship and loss, exclusion and belonging, and of the wisdom and humanity of maturity. Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevcik. Both Libor and Sam are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it.

An award-winning novelist and critic, Howard Jacobson was born in Manchester on 25 August 1942 and read English at Cambridge under F.R. Leavis. He taught at the University of Sydney, Selwyn College, Cambridge and Wolverhampton Polytechnic - the inspiration for his first novel, Coming From Behind. He has been longlisted twice for the Man Booker Prize for Kalooki Nights in 2006 and Who's Sorry Now? in 2002. Other novels include The Mighty Walzer and The Act of Love. Howard Jacobson writes a weekly column for the Independent and has written and presented several documentaries for television. He lives in London. For further information please contact Anya Rosenberg at Bloomsbury Tel: 020 7494 6008, email: anya.rosenberg@bloomsbury.com , mob: 07540 838 369 - ends - Notes to Editors: • Howard Jacobson is available for interview.

Please contact Anya Rosenberg at Bloomsbury on tel: 020 7494 6008, email: anya.rosenberg@bloomsbury.com , mob: 07540 838 369 • The winner of the Man Booker Prize was chosen from 138 entries, including 14 called in by the judges. The 2010 shortlisted titles were: Peter Carey Parrot and Olivier in America Faber and Faber Emma Donoghue Room Picador - Pan Macmillan Damon Galgut In a Strange Room Atlantic Books - Grove Atlantic Howard Jacobson The Finkler Question Bloomsbury Andrea Levy The Long Song Headline Review - Headline Publishing Group - Tom McCarthy C Jonathan Cape - Random House • For the 2010 Man Booker Prize, UK publishers were eligible to submit two full-length novels published between 1 October 2009 and 30 September 2010. In addition any title by an author who has previously won the Booker or Man Booker Prize may be submitted. Any book by an author who has been shortlisted within the last ten years is also entitled to automatic entry.

• The Booker Prize for Fiction was first awarded in 1969, and Man was announced as the sponsor of the prize in April 2002, with a five year extension agreed in 2006. For a full history of the prize including previous winners, shortlisted authors and judges visit the website: . It is a major media and information tool which is accessed worldwide with up to the minute information about both the annual Man Booker Prize and the biennial Man Booker International Prize. Featuring news, interviews and written pieces as well as a lively forum and full history archive of the prize, the site is used by journalists, bloggers and general members of the public on a daily basis. • Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Fourth Estate) won the Man Booker Prize 2009. It has now sold over half a million copies in the UK alone. Rights have been sold in 37 countries world-wide. • The Man Booker Prize App is free to download from the App Store to an Apple iPhone or iPod Touch and is the UK's first app for a literary prize.

Free audio extracts of all 13 of the longlisted titles can now be downloaded to mobile phones via GoSpoken • The Man Booker Prize is sponsored by Man. Man is a world-leading alternative investment management business. With a broad range of funds for institutional and private investors globally, it is known for its performance, innovative product design and investor service. Man manages around $39.5 billion. The original business was founded in 1783. Today, Man is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a member of the FTSE 100 Index with a market capitalisation of around £4 billion. Man is a member of the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index and the FTSE4Good Index. Man also supports many awards, charities and initiatives around the world, including sponsorship of the Man Booker literary prizes. Man supports many awards, charities and initiatives around the world, including sponsorship of the Man Booker literary prizes. In the year to March 2010 the Man Charitable Trust continued to fund innovative projects for children and adults that improve literacy.

Donations were made to support the "Every Child a Reader" reading recovery programme, Dyslexia Action, The Mayor's Fund for London, National Literacy Trust and St Petrock's (Exeter). The Trust also supports the RNIB Talking Books Service, enabling the production and distribution of Talking Book formats of the shortlisted titles of the Man Booker Prize Further information can be found at • The Booker Prize Foundation is a registered charity (no 1090049) which, since 2002, has been responsible for the award of the prize. The trustees of the Booker Prize Foundation are former Chairman of Booker plc, Jonathan Taylor CBE (Chair); Lord Baker of Dorking CH; playwright and President of the Royal Literary Fund, Sir Ronald Harwood CBE; former Chair of the British Council, Baroness Kennedy QC; broadcaster, James Naughtie; biographer, Victoria Glendinning; writer, Baroness Neuberger DBE and former Finance Director of Rentokil plc, Christopher Pearce. Martyn Goff CBE, former Man Booker Prize administrator, is President of the Foundation and Baroness Nicholson of Winterbourne is a Vice President.

• The Advisory Committee, which advises on any changes to the rules and on the selection of the judges, represents all sides of the book world. Its members are: Ion Trewin, Chair (Literary Director, Man Booker Prizes); Richard Cable, publisher; Mark Chilton, Company Secretary, Booker Ltd; Peter Clarke, Chief Executive, Man, Jonathan Douglas, Director of the National Literacy Trust; Maggie Fergusson, writer and Secretary of the Royal Society of Literature; Basil Comely, BBC TV; Derek Johns, literary agent; Peter Kemp, Chief Fiction Reviewer, The Sunday Times; Dominic Myers, Managing Director of Waterstone's; Nigel Newton, publisher; Fiammetta Rocco, literary editor, The Economist (Man Booker International Prize administrator); Eve Smith (Company Secretary, the Booker Prize Foundation); and Robert Topping; Topping & Company Booksellers. • Booker is the UK's leading food wholesaler with over 170 branches nationwide. It serves over 350,000 independent businesses. • The Booker Prize Archive was given on loan in 2003 to Oxford Brookes University where it now resides.

• Blind and partially sighted people can now read any of the books shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize on the day the winner is announced. The production of the books in braille and giant print is funded by the Booker Prize Foundation, and the Man Group PLC Charitable Trust pays separately for the production of Talking Books. • The Foundation is also working with the Sound Archive of the British Library on its 'National Life Stories - Authors' Lives' project by funding archive interviews with shortlisted authors.

For further information about the prize please visit or follow the prize on Twitter at twitter.com/ManBookerPrize Howard Jacobson and The Finkler Question Win the Man Booker Prize for 2010 - The Booktopian Blog » Literary Prizes » Howard Jacobson and The Finkler Question Win the Man Booker Prize for 2010 Howard Jacobson and The Finkler Question Win the Man Booker Prize for 2010 by John Purcell |October 13, 2010 Share: London author and columnist named winner October 2010Howard Jacobson is tonight (Tuesday 12 October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Finkler Question , published by Bloomsbury. London author and columnist Howard Jacobson has been longlisted twice for the prize, in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and in 2002 for Who’s Sorry Now, but has never before been shortlisted. The Finkler Question is a novel about love, loss and male friendship, and explores what it means to be Jewish today.

Said to have ‘some of the wittiest, most poignant and sharply intelligent comic prose in the English language’, The Finkler Question has been described as ‘wonderful’ and ‘richly satisfying’ and as a novel of ‘full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding’. This is the third Man Booker winner published by Bloomsbury. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood won the prize in 2000 and The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje in 1992. The publisher has had six shortlisted books including Cats Eye (1989), Alias Grace (1996) and Oryx and Crake (2003) by Margaret Atwood, Lies of Silence (1990) by Brian Moore, Crossing the River (1993) by Carol Phillips and The Map of Love (1999) by Ahdaf Soueif. Sir Andrew Motion, Chair of the judges, made the announcement, which was broadcast by the BBC from the awards dinner at London’s Guildhall. Peter Clarke, Chief Executive of Man, presented Howard Jacobson with a cheque for £50,000.

Andrew Motion comments ‘ The Finkler Question is a marvellous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle. It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize.’ Over and above his prize of £50,000, Howard Jacobson can expect a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book. The judging panel for the 2010 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was: Andrew Motion (Chair), former Poet Laureate; Rosie Blau, Literary Editor of the Financial Times; Deborah Bull, formerly a dancer, now Creative Director of the Royal Opera House as well as a writer and broadcaster; Tom Sutcliffe, journalist, broadcaster and author and Frances Wilson, biographer and critic. Sales of the books longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize have been stronger than ever before, with sales over 45% higher than last year.

(courtesy of the Man Booker website ) The Winner of the 2010 Man Booker Prize The Finkler Question Howard Jacobson Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular and disappointed BBC worker, and Sam Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they’ve never quite lost touch with each other – or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czechoslovakian always more concerned with the wider world than with exam results.. Now, both Libor and Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor’s grand, central London apartment. It’s a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. Better, perhaps, to go through life without knowing happiness at all because that way you had less to mourn?

Treslove finds he has tears enough for the unbearable sadness of both his friends’ losses. And it’s that very evening, at exactly 11:30pm, as Treslove hesitates a moment outside the window of the oldest violin dealer in the country as he walks home, that he is attacked. After this, his whole sense of who and what he is will slowly and ineluctably change. The Finkler Question is a scorching story of exclusion and belonging, justice and love, ageing, wisdom and humanity. Funny, furious, unflinching, this extraordinary novel shows one of our finest writers at his brilliant best. Howard Jacobson wins Booker Prize - Boston.com Books Howard Jacobson wins Booker Prize The six books shortlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize are held at a photocall on the stage of the Royal Festival Hal in London, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, Oct. 12 at a dinner at London's Guildhall.

(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth) By Sylvia Hui Associated Press Writer / October 12, 2010 E-mail this article Add a personal message:(80 character limit) Your E-mail: Print | Text size – + LONDON—British writer Howard Jacobson won the prestigious Booker Prize Tuesday with his philosophical comedy "The Finkler Question," beating five other writers, including two-time winner Peter Carey and the bookies' favorite, Tom McCarthy. Jacobson, who had been on the long list twice for the 50,000 pounds ($80,000) prize but had never been shortlisted until this year, jokingly said he had prepared acceptance speeches for over two decades before eventually winning the award. "I'm speechless," he began as he took to the stage at London's Guild Hall. "Fortunately I prepared one earlier. It's dated 1983, that is how long the wait's been." The 58-year-old, who has written 15 novels, is known for his comic touch and his treatment of Jewish themes. His latest, he said, is a comedy about sorrow.

The tale, about the lives and losses of two old friends and their teacher, was affected by the deaths of several of Jacobson's close friends, he said. "These things get to you. What I wanted to do though is to feel that I can go on writing an entertaining novel even though the light deepens and darkens and this does become a very dark novel," he said. Chief judge and former poet laureate Andrew Motion called the book a "completely worthy winner of this great prize." "'The Finkler Question' is a marvelous book: very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle," he said. Jacobson was competing against such strong contenders as Carey, an Australian who won Bookers in 1988 for "Oscar and Lucinda" and in 2001 for "True History of the Kelly Gang." His historical novel "Parrot and Olivier in America," inspired by the American travels of French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, was on the short list for this year's award.

Lesser-known British writer McCarthy was odds-on favorite for his experimental tale of time and technology, "C." McCarthy's story of a technology-obssessed 20th-century everyman has drawn comparisons to James Joyce. The other contenders include "Room" by Irish-Canadian writer Emma Donoghue, the story of a boy and his mother held captive in a garden shed; "In a Strange Room" by South Africa's Damon Galgut; and "Small Island" author Andrea Levy's "The Long Song," the story of a slave on a 19th-century Jamaican sugar plantation. Jacobson had not been widely seen as a favorite for Tuesday's prize, but some say he should have been recognized earlier for his unique blend of the intellectual and the entertaining. "He consistently combines wit, poignancy, erudition and elegant writing to produce wonderfully accomplished novels," said Jonathan Ruppin, of London's Foyles book shop. "He's a vivid and valuable example of how intellect and entertainment are not mutually exclusive." The Booker is open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of former British colonies, and the winner often gets a huge publicity boost as well as the check.

Last year's winner, Hilary Mantel's Tudor saga "Wolf Hall," became an international best-seller. The prize was founded in 1969 and is officially called the Man Booker Prize after its sponsor, financial services conglomerate Man Group PLC. Jacobson was longlisted for the Booker in 2006 for "Kalooki Nights" and in 2002 for "Who's Sorry Now." ------ Associated Press writer Jill Lawless contributed to this report. © Copyright 2010 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Thought you might like … The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson | Book review | Books | The Guardian The Observer The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson In this dazzling novel, Howard Jacobson uses Jewishness as a way in to universal questions about life and society Howard Jacobson: "wit, warmth and human understanding".

Photograph by Eamonn McCabe Edward Docx Saturday 14 August 2010 19.05 EDT First published on Saturday 14 August 2010 19.05 EDT Share on Messenger Close Flaubert once wrote to Turgenev: "Never have things of the spirit counted for so little. Never has hatred for everything great been so manifest – disdain for beauty, execration of literature. I have always tried to live in an ivory tower, but a tide of shit is beating at its walls, threatening to undermine it." It's a favourite quotation of mine for many reasons – among them the way it is both so pompous and so not-at-all pompous at the same time – and of course every serious writer thinks exactly the same of his own age.

But all the same, so weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seems the mood of the publishing industry at the moment, and so swollen and celebrated seems the appetite for the ill-bound crapola of the departure lounges, that it is tempting – after reading something as fine as The Finkler Question – not to bother reviewing it in any meaningful sense but simply to urge you to put down this paper and go and buy as many copies as you can carry. But let's press on for now. The Finkler Question (longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize) is full of wit, warmth, intelligence, human feeling and understanding. It is also beautifully written with that sophisticated and near invisible skill of the authentic writer. Technically the characterisation is impeccable, the prose a subtle delight, the word selection everywhere perfect, the phrase-making fresh and arresting without self-consciousness. Indeed, there's so much that is first rate in the manner of Jacobson's delivery that I could write all day on his deployment of language without once mentioning what the book is about. A single line describing the hero's father will have to do: "a man who stood so straight that he created a kind of architectural silence around himself". So what is the book about?

Well, this is the story of Julian Treslove, once of the BBC (pleasingly satirised) and now making a living as a celebrity lookalike. Treslove is not Jewish but, in simple terms, the narrative details his love affair with and besotted inquiry into what Jewishness means – politically, socially, economically, romantically, intellectually, emotionally, culturally, musically and so on. Treslove has only a "timid" awareness of his place in the universe "ringed by a barbed wire fence of rights and limits". He wants to be part of something vast and ancient, something abounding and intense. He wants to be Jewish. This is also the story of Treslove's longtime best friend and worst enemy, Sam Finkler, a spurious (therefore popular and successful) philosopher who is forever on television, Desert Island Discs and so on. Finkler is Jewish and Treslove uses the word "Finkler" to mean "Jew" – hence the title of the book comes to mean "The Jewish Question". Finkler is an Israel-hater and joins a group of celebrity Jews called Ashamed.

Then there's Libor Sevcik, an elderly ex-Hollywood journalist who is in mourning for his beautiful dead wife and a former teacher to Treslove and Finkler. His Jewishness is long marinated in Schubert impromptus and described as intellectually "ritzy". He's pro-Israel. And finally, of the four main characters, there is my favourite, Tyler. She is the wife of Finkler and turns out not to be Jewish despite having so studiously learned the practices of the faith and so completely taken on the demeanour of a certain sort of Jewish wife that when Treslove sleeps with her he is staggered and disappointed to discover her secret. She also dies. So then: all this Jewishness and not Jewishness is what the book asks the reader to weigh – eloquently, farcically, seriously, mockingly, perceptively, dumbly, brilliantly. Now, here's the rub. (Finkler and Treslove are obsessed by Hamlet by the way.) I am not Jewish. But the reason I enjoyed this novel so, aside from its formal verve, is because it seemed to me that Jacobson is only using Judaism as his "way in".

In other words, as all serious artists do, he is mining his immediate milieu as a way of directly unearthing the deeper questions of family, society, belief, culture, relationships – the underlying nature of humanity. Of course, on the part of non-Jews, there is a reluctance to say what they think about Jewish concerns and what Tyler refers to as their "self-preoccupation". ("Finklers" are described as notoriously "touchy".) But I've been reading a lot of anthropology recently and you only need a couple of pages on the amazingly close-relatedness of the entire human population (one original family of some 200 out of Africa) and a couple more on the way Homo sapiens is compelled to make up rituals by way of fashioning meaning where there is none to realise that on one level all the great religions – yes, Judaism too – are complete bullshit. Except, of course, that they are also the most powerful, important and consoling mythopoetic way we have of understanding our lives, our circumstances, our random births and our brutal deaths.

And that is what the book is really about: the pompousness and not-at-all pompousness of religion; or, to put it another way, the overwhelming bullshit and the overwhelming beauty of Jewishness, where Jewishness is a metaphor for human culture in general. Edward Docx's most recent novel is Self Help (Picador). Howard Jacobson's 'clever, complicated, wise' novel triumphs in a close contest for this year's Man Booker prize Published: 12 Oct 2010 In the wake of his 2010 Booker prize win, Howard Jacobson talks to Andrew Dickson about our need for comedy in fiction, and chair of judges Andrew Motion explains the reasons behind their choice Published: 13 Oct 2010 The Finkler Question's author is far from the only Jewish novelist in this country – so where did all the other stories about Jewishness go?

Published: 15 Oct 2010 Claire Armitstead, Guardian literary editor, Sarah Crown, editor of the Guardian/books, and Benedicte Page of the Bookseller discuss Howard Jacobson's victory at this year's Man Booker prize with his novel, The Finkler Question Published: 12 Oct 2010

Question: Who won the 2010 Man-Booker Prize with the novel The Finkler Question ?
Answer: HOWARD JACOBSON