The English Patient was awarded the Golden Booker Prize: How important was its film adaptation?

[Charlotte_Shi]

The winner of the Golden Man Booker Prize – the best from the last fifty years of the Man Booker Prize - was chosen by the public (July 2018). A panel of judges considered all previous winners (one judge per each decade). Judge Kamila Shamsie said that Michael Ondaatje’s The English Patient was ‘that rare novel which gets under your skin and insists you return to it time and again, always yielding a new surprise or delight’ [source: the Man Booker Prize official website]. The book has been translated into 38 languages and the film won nine Oscars (1997), including best picture.

At the closing event of the Man Booker 50 Festival (organized to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the prize), Ondaatje said: ‘Not for a second do I believe this is the best book on the list - or any other list that could have been put together of Booker novels.’ He also mentioned Anthony Minghella, the late The English Patient film director and ‘his friend’: (Minghella) is ‘no longer with us but I suspect has something to do with the result of this vote’.

How do you feel about the book, the film, and the prize?
Although the film was great, I liked the book better. Still, popular film adaptations often increase sales of corresponding books. Do you think that the book would have been awarded the Golden Booker Prize if it wasn’t for its successful film adaptation?