Multiple choice softskills creativity

In the year 1999,Anita Desai's novel "Fasting, Feasting" was also in the title race of Man Booker Prize but ultimately lost to a novel called "Disgrace". Name the novelist who won that year.

  1. Ahdaf Soueif

  2. Colm Tóibín

  3. Michael Frayn

  4. J. M. Coetzee
Reveal answer Fill a bubble to check yourself
D Correct answer
Explanation

J.M. Coetzee won the 1999 Man Booker Prize for 'Disgrace'. Coetzee is a South African writer who has won the Booker Prize twice (also for 'Life and Times of Michael K' in 1983) and later won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003. Anita Desai's 'Fasting, Feasting' was indeed shortlisted but did not win.

AI explanation

J. M. Coetzee won the 1999 Man Booker Prize for 'Disgrace', a novel about a disgraced professor in post-apartheid South Africa; this was his second Booker win (he'd previously won in 1983 for 'Life & Times of Michael K'), making him the first author to win the prize twice. Anita Desai's 'Fasting, Feasting' was indeed shortlisted that year but lost. The distractors are plausible but wrong: Ahdaf Soueif ('The Map of Love') and Michael Frayn ('Headlong') were also shortlisted in 1999 but did not win; Colm Tóibín was shortlisted for the Booker in other years (e.g., 1999 actually — but did not win), not the eventual winner. Coetzee's win for 'Disgrace' is the well-documented correct answer.

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