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THE literary world has issued a lukewarm greeting to proposals for a new alternative to the Man Booker prize, which this year has been attacked for allegedly putting readability ahead of achievement in literary fiction. Authors, agents and publishers contacted by The Independent have officially "welcomed" the new initiative, called The Literature Prize, which its founders—including literary agent Andrew Kidd—hope will recapture the Booker’s original spirit of "quality and ambition" when it launches next year. This year’s Booker has drawn criticism for its exclusion of Alan Hollinghurst’s widely-praised The Stranger’s Child from its shortlist, while the judging chair, Dame Stella Rimington, has angered the literary establishment after saying she wanted people "to buy these books and read them, not buy them and admire them". She later called criticisms of the shortlist "pathetic". Author John Banville, one of those backing the new prize, appeared to offer a lukewarm endorsement in a statement. "I am told that someone attached to the Man Booker this year spoke of the need for novels with more ‘readability’—a peculiar term—but whether this indicates a fall in standards I don’t know," he said. Others said they felt a new prize would not be a perfect solution. — The Independent
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