'Booker Prize is like backward shining light'

Novelist Howard Jacobson, who won the Man Booker Prize for his The Finkler Question, says the award is like a "backward shining light" that seems to bless all his previous books. "I feel now that the Man Booker couldn't have happened at a more wonderful time. It seems to bless all my previous books. It is like a backward shining light, benefiting all the books I have written," Jacobson told IANS in a telephone interview from London.

"I advise young aspiring writers to read the best of literature. And if they do not succeed early in life, let Howard Jacobson be a lesson that one can succeed even at the age of 68," Jacobson, who is of Jewish origin and often describes himself as a 'Jewish Jane Austen', said.

The Manchester-born Jacobson, who was earlier long-listed twice for the Man Booker Prize - in 2006 for Kalooki Nights and for Who's Sorry Now in 2002, is compared to Philip Roth, the famous American-Jewish novelist.

Full report here Hindustan Times