In Search of Prizes

As the Man Booker shortlist is published, Sarah Dunant explores how new writers and readers find each other.

"While an unhappy 19th century Russian marriage which leads to a fatal adulterous affair may be irresistible to one reader" she writes, "a man who wakes up as a beetle may be what presses the button of another. That is both the wonder and nightmare of selling novels".

Sarah explores how - in the "brutal climate" facing the publishing industry (with the onslaught of supermarket and internet price wars) - literary prizes provide a much needed boost for authors.

But these prizes, she warns, are a kind of lottery.

Producer Adele Armstrong.