The Man Booker prize has been won by an experimental first novel that was 5 years in the writing. Lincoln in the Bardo is written from the perspective of Abraham Lincoln’s dead son and a host of other souls speaking from a limbo between life and death (the Tibetan belief of Bardo).

In interviews today Saunders has spoken about how the structure of the book – with dozens of narrative voices – has been a significant challenge, and how literature has the power to see the world from the perspective of others. Interestingly, President Trump is very proud of how few books he has read! Go figure.

Writing about his own creative practice in the Guardian recently, he said ‘An artist works outside the realm of strict logic. Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art. Artists know this. According to Donald Barthelme: “The writer is that person who, embarking upon her task, does not know what to do.” …. Einstein, always the smarty-pants, outdid them both: “No worthy problem is ever solved in the plane of its original conception.”

Saunders is the 2^nd American to win the prize, after Paul Beatty last year.