the min

John Carey, this year’s Booker judge, writes about changes in literary tastes he’s perceived over the last twenty years.

The most prolific growth in the past 20 years, and one that spans all these different forms and fashions, is the Moral Indignation Novel (MIN). It has been nourished by feminism and post-colonialism, but spreads far beyond the boundaries of these powerful movements. Its characteristic is to dwell on past atrocities and injustices. The iniquities of the slave trade, or the extermination of native peoples are the kind of subject that it relishes.

With the exception of the God of Small Things, he finds that the Booker hasn’t “succumbed” to the MIN.