[ti:Booker Judges Honor Atwood, Evaristo with Rare Double Prize] [by:www.51voa.com] [00:00.00]更多听力请访问51VOA.COM [00:00.04]Margaret Atwood's book The Testaments and Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other [00:09.52]both won the Booker Prize this week. [00:14.40]Judges recognized the prize's oldest and first black woman winners in a surprise double award. [00:24.58]The two writers will split the $62,800 in prize money, the judging panel said. [00:35.28]The award recognizes the best novel of the year written in English and published in Britain and Ireland. [00:45.12]Margaret Atwood won the prize in 2000 for her book The Blind Assassin. [00:52.72]The Testaments was published just last month. [00:56.92]It is the sequel to the 79-year-old Canadian's best-selling 1985 novel, The Handmaid's Tale. [01:08.04]Evaristo is the first black woman to win the prize. Her book Girl, Woman, Other [01:15.53]tells the stories of 12 people living in Britain. [01:19.76]They are mainly female and black. [01:23.32]While the Booker Prize has been jointly awarded to two writers two times before, [01:29.72]the rules changed in 1993 limiting the award to one person. [01:37.32]The judges broke those rules, saying they could not agree on a winner between the two books. [01:44.36]The judges chose from a list of six novels. [01:49.44]"Neither of us expected to win this," said Atwood in her acceptance speech. [01:55.80]"I would have thought that I would have been too elderly [01:59.60]and I kind of don't need the attention so I'm very glad that you're getting some ... [02:05.88]It would have been embarrassing if I had been alone here," she said to Evaristo. [02:13.28]Book lovers had been waiting for the release of Atwood's novel. [02:18.11]It returns to the totalitarian state of Gilead some 15 years after the end of The Handmaid's Tale. [02:27.60]Atwood has said the weakening of women's rights in some parts of the world led to her writing the sequel. [02:36.36]The judges described it as a "savage and beautiful novel." [02:42.04]In Britain, the book sold just over 100,000 copies in its first week of release. [02:50.96]Her novel The Handmaid's Tale was itself nominated for the Booker Prize in 1986. [02:58.37]It tells the story of women who are banned from reading and writing, [03:03.72]and those who can have children are forced into sexual slavery. [03:09.92]Girl, Woman, Other is Evaristo's eighth book of fiction. [03:15.16]The judging panel described the work as "a must-read about modern Britain and womanhood". [03:23.32]"This is incredible. I suppose a lot of people say, ‘I never thought it would happen to me,' [03:30.13]and I will say I am the first black woman to win this prize," said the 60-year-old British writer. [03:37.99]"I hope that honor doesn't last too long. I hope that other people come forward now," she said. [03:46.52]I'm Susan Shand. 更多听力请访问51VOA.COM