As the Man Booker shortlist is published, Sarah Dunant explores how new writers and readers find each other.
"While an unhappy 19th century Russian marriage which leads to a fatal adulterous affair may be irresistible to one reader" she writes, "a man who wakes up as a beetle may be what presses the button of another. That is both the wonder and nightmare of selling novels".
Sarah explores how - in the "brutal climate" facing the publishing industry (with the onslaught of supermarket and internet price wars) - literary prizes provide a much needed boost for authors.
But these prizes, she warns, are a kind of lottery.
Producer Adele Armstrong.
