CULTURAS IN VITRO
Booker is 'won' a week early: It was red faces and bad Latin at the Man Booker Prize yesterday afternoon when the award's website inadvertently carried news of a winner well before next week's announcement.
The "winner" of the 2002 Booker is Yann Martel for his novel Life of Pi, which tells the story of the sole human survivor on a lifeboat adrift at sea with a zebra, orangutan and tiger for company: an "extraordinary achievement", according to the Guardian's reviewer.
A Man Booker spokeswoman said the posting must have been an error caused by crossed wires between the prize's development website and the actual site. "The judges haven't met yet. I can guarantee that this isn't the actual result. There are six draft press releases for each of the shortlisted books and this is one of them."