Michael Harris Caine

Sir Michael Harris Caine was an English businessman. He headed Booker Bros and Booker plc, holding different positions since after. Later he helped establishing the Man Booker Prize. A president of the Royal African Society, he created the Caine Prize, and later also the Russian Booker Prize.

Biography

Michael Harris Caine was born in Hong Kong on 17 June 1927, to clerk Sydney Caine, who chaired London School of Economics. Michael Caine attended the Bedales School and studied at University of Oxford, receiving there his bachelor's degree after writing on slavery and secession in the United States. He received his master's degree at the George Washington University. He was executive and board member of Booker plc, and helped establishing the Man Booker Prize, using the Prix Goncourt as a model. Caine became chief executive from 1975 to 1979 and finally chaired till 1993, the date he retired. He was also chairman of the Booker Prize Management Committee.^[1][2]

Caine headed and maintained several Africa-based companies and organizations, including Royal African Society, Africa Center, African Emerging Markets Fund, Africa '95 and the United Kingdom Council for Overseas Students. For his philanthropical works he was knighted in 1988. With his first wife, Janice Mercer, he had one son and one daughter, but divorced with her in 1987 to marry Emma Nicholson that same year. Caine was frequently confused with the actor Michael Caine; his second wife responded "An enormous number of times. The phone would ring in the middle of the night, and there would be these inebriated women calling from Los Angeles saying, 'I'm coming over, I'm on the next plane, get my room ready.' ". He died on 20 March 1999 in London.^[1][2]

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