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The Londoner: 'Trumpian' Booker chair in firing line

  • A publisher has accused the Booker Prize judge chair of making an “ugly, Trumpian” remark and demanded “the truth” about how the prize came to be awarded to two authors this year.In remarks that will reverberate through the literary establishment, Sam Jordison, the co-director of Galley Beggar Press, pleads for one of the Booker judges to speak out about the process, saying: “Someone has to tell us what the hell happened.” Jordison, whose author Lucy Ellmann was shortlisted for her novel Ducks, Newburyport but lost out to Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo takes aim at Peter Florence, the chair of judges. At the start of his speech during last week’s awards, Jordison claims: “Florence made an ugly, Trumpian aside about ‘even’ having to thank journalists.”