The Sunday Times reports that:

THEY can’t judge a book without its cover.
Publishers and agents have rejected two Booker prize-winning novels
submitted as works by aspiring authors.

One of the books considered unworthy by the publishing industry
was by V S Naipaul, one of Britain’s greatest living writers, who won
the Nobel prize for literature.

The
exercise by The Sunday Times draws attention to concerns that the
industry has become incapable of spotting genuine literary talent.

Typed manuscripts of the opening chapters of Naipaul’s In a
Free State and a second novel, Holiday, by Stanley Middleton, were sent
to 20 publishers and agents.

None appears to have recognised them as Booker prizewinners
from the 1970s that were lauded as British novel writing at its best.
Of the 21 replies, all but one were rejections.

Anyone who has been reading The Grumpy Old Bookman will not be surprised at this. In fact, anyone who has read THE BOOK will not be surprised at this as it contains Michael’s thoughts on whether a Booker Winner is in fact the best novel of that year, or necessarily a particularly good one at all.

You’ll have to hunt around his site a bit but it was in July, I think, that he linked to a much longer piece of his on exactly this point, that the readers of the slush pile simply don’t know what they’re doing. Indeed, given the way the industry is set up, can’t.