[ad_1]
Michael Moritz, billionaire, philanthropist and author of Silicon Valley, announced that the charitable foundation of his wife Harriet Heyman was the new sponsor of the Booker Prize, a month after Man Group revealed that it was ending his sponsorship of the prestigious prize for 18 years for literary fiction.
The Moritz and Heyman Foundation, Crankstart, is committed to providing the Booker with an initial five-year exclusive funding period, with an option to renew for an additional five years. It will not give its name to this award, which will take over its former name, Booker Prize, effective June 1, when the sponsorship of the Man group will end.
The financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed, but the Booker Prize Foundation said it was not expected to change the purse of the winner nor its recent expansion to include a English-language novel published in the United Kingdom. The Literature Award in Translation will be known as the International Booker Award from June and will continue to award £ 25,000 each to the award-winning author and their translator.
Moritz, a venture capitalist whose net worth is estimated at $ 3.4 billion (£ 2.5 billion), created Crankstart with his wife, the American writer Heyman, in 2000 to support " the forgotten, the poor, the unfortunate, the oppressed and the causes where help makes all the difference ". Of the recent donations, 75 million were donated to Oxford University in 2012, to help the poorest students to settle and inspire, said Moritz at the time of the generosity of foreigners in England who had welcomed his parents as Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. 19659002] "None of us can imagine a day when we do not spend our time reading a book. The Booker Awards are ways to publicize the ideas, discoveries, pleasures and joys that come out of great fiction, "said Moritz, born in Wales, studied in Oxford and now resides in San Francisco.
Previously, Moritz worked as a reporter for Time magazine, writing a biography of Steve Jobs and Apple before turning to technology investments. He has been a partner at Sequoia Capital since 1986 and has invested $ 25 million in what was then the Google technology start-up in 1999. His recent work as an author includes Leading's co-writing with the company. former Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson.
I am an international traveler, but just like Booker, I was born in Britain, and before coming to America, he was fed English literature. Harriet and I are fortunate to be able to support awards that celebrate together the best fiction in the world, "he added.
Man Group, a hedge fund, has sponsored the award since 2002, but has announced its withdrawal at the end of January. Accounts deposited with the Charity Commission showed that Man Group paid £ 1.5 million a year to the Booker Prize Foundation. The organizers said on Wednesday that they had been informed that Man's sponsorship would end in the summer of 2018 – "before Sebastian Faulks portrays man as an enemy" in news articles.
It was asked whether this suited the British literary institution. To be sponsored by a billionaire from Silicon Valley, the Booker Prize Foundation has stated that it is "confident that it has found in Crankstart a sympathetic and renowned philanthropic funder, who shares the values and vision of GMP "
price once it appeared that the man was retiring." Helena Kennedy, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Booker, explains: "We have not found it difficult to find It was a question of finding the right agreement, and the people who were interested in it for the right reasons. "
She describes Moritz and Heyman as" true book lovers ":" Many Commercial sponsors want opportunities to use the object for purposes like bringing their guests to dinner.It does not interest them.Their interest is to maintain good literature. "
Kennedy says that renaming the Crankstart Booker price has never been suggested "Michael and Harriet made it very clear that giving names to things was not their business. What we like is that we become the Booker prize again.
The Booker was strongly criticized by the authors and the publishing industry for having decided to open it to anyone writing in English and in English. published in the United Kingdom. The former winner, Peter Carey, called it "global branding exercise", while 30 editors last year told the organizers that the change of rules allowed "the domination of Anglo-American writers at the expense of others".
But the Booker Prize Foundation confirmed that "a sponsor or a funder does not have a say on the rules" and "there is no plan to reverse Rule".
"We made this change, it did not make everyone happy, but we stay with it," said Kennedy, pointing out that the foundation was keen to "ensure that the small houses of 39, edition also find their account. "
When he announced the end of his sponsorship, general manager Luke Ellis said It was a privilege to sponsor Booker because" after careful consideration of our funding initiatives ", its resources would be concentrated elsewhere
In early February, the Folio price announced that Rathbones Investment Management promised" a substantial increase in its commitment to sponsorship ", which would increase from 20,000 to 30,000 £.
The Baillie Gifford Award for Non-Fiction, previously awarded the Samuel Johnson Award, In February, the Investment Partnership announced the signing of a new sponsorship agreement of a duration sep This would raise the price from £ 30,000 to £ 50,000.
And the Women's Fiction Prize, sponsored by Orange until 2012, then by Baileys and now by a group of brands and companies from different sectors, also announced this month. he had been granted the status of charity, introducing a sponsorship system to recruit individual donors.
Source link
