“There are at least two reasons why almost every anglophone novelist feels compelled to get as near the Booker Prize as they can. The first is because it looms over them and follows them around in the way Guy de Maupassant said the Eiffel Tower follows you everywhere when you’re in Paris.” Even so, writes Amit Chaudhuri, “I’m not saying that the Booker shouldn’t exist. I’m saying that it requires an alternative, and the alternative isn’t another prize.”