Melville House Books

John Le Carre may need to watch his back

John Le Carre has blown some literary minds down under: After being announced at a ceremony in Sydney as one of the finalists yesterday for the Man Booker International Prize — which is worth £60,000, or about $96,000 — he issued a statement saying he wanted to be withdrawn from consideration.

“I am enormously flattered to be named as a finalist of 2011 Man Booker International Prize. However, I do not compete for literary prizes and have therefore asked for my name to be withdrawn,” he said, according to an Agence France Presse wire story.

But the respectful withdrawal rankled some — the reporter on this Sydney Morning Herald story, for one, whose lede declared that Le Carre had “snubbed the literary world.”

The same report noted that Booker judges were not sure how to respond. “I don’t think we can give him the prize if he doesn’t want it,” said judge (and novelist) Justin Cartwright. But another judge, Australian publisher Carmen Callil disagreed. “Did Francis Assisi have a say in whether he was made a saint?” she asked, apparently in all seriousness.

Of course, to put the article accuracy in perspective, it also says that American novelist Anne Pyler was also one of the finalists.

But make no mistake the powers that be at planet Booker were pissed. A statement on the Booker’s website from the chair of the judging panel, Rick Gekoski, tersely announced, “John le Carré’s name will, of course, remain on the list.”

Dennis Johnson is the founder of MobyLives, and the co-founder and co-publisher of Melville House.