Booker Prize finds new sponsor in Silicon Valley billionaire

The Booker Prize Thursday found a new financial backer in venture capitalist and author Michael Moritz, a month after its previous sponsor the Man Group ended its 18-year association with the Britain's most prestigious literary prize.

The annual award for novels, which has been known as the Man Booker since 2002, will be paid for the next five years by Crankstart, the charity run by 64-year-old Moritz and his wife Harriet Heyman.

Founded in 1969, the 50,000-pound Booker Prize was originally open to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth. The US authors became eligible in 2014.

Welsh-born Moritz, who is based in San Francisco, is worth USD 3.4 billlionaire, according to Forbes magazine. He will also support The International Booker Prize for translated works.

"Neither of us can imagine a day where we don't spend time reading a book. The Booker Prizes are ways of spreading the word about the insights, discoveries, pleasures and joy that spring from great fiction," Moritz ...