I don't know how solid the information divulged here is:
Louise Doughty, one of the judges of this year's Man Booker prize, has already spilled the beans on who nearly won this year's cheque: Sebastian Barry, for The Secret Scripture. But now Michael Portillo, speaking to the Economist, has given away more details of precisely why The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga came out from behind the pack to take the prize. There was a feeling among the judges, apparently, that after Anne Enright's victory last year, that was enough Irish literature for a while, thank you very much; there were also problems with Barry's plot, which depends on a humungous coincidence near its close. Still, Portillo conceded that The White Tiger is "not such a beautiful book [as The Secret Scripture]; not written to the same heights of literary magic".
On the assumption the info is solid, let me raise an eyebrow, no more. I don't know if the judging panel for the Booker is constrained in any way - like, you know, by criteria and such - but one imagines they couldn't just say, 'Let's go for this book; the author's a good mate.' So, can being an Irish writer legitimately weigh with the judges? Over here (in the post 'How the judges decided on the 2008 winner') Michael Portillo mentions concerns amongst the judges about the plot of Sebastian Barry's book, but not their feeling that there'd been enough Irish literature for the time being. If, however, the plot-related reason was sufficient, it would be unnecessary to refer to Irish considerations when talking to the Economist; and if that reason wasn't sufficient and Irish considerations did indeed play a part, shouldn't books by Irish writers have been publicly excluded from the start?