This study of a selection of Booker Prize winning novels focuses on the publicity and politics of prize culture; canon-building, literary innovation and its relationship to a diverse set of linguistic, theoretical, and world literary traditions. Course readings will include novels by Murdoch, Rushdie, Hulme, Ishiguro, Byatt, Okri, Ondaatje, Roy, McEwan, Coetzee, Pierre, Hollinghurst, Desai and Barnes, each seen and through the lens of the cultural phenomenon of a prize Barnes has described as "posh bingo."