"Rejected by the Publishers"

Roseann sent us this interesting Times clip on two Booker - prize- winning novelists of the Seventies who had those same manuscripts rejected by twenty modern publishers. I'm not sure exactly what it means-- I have not read Middleton, and a lot of Booker prize winners have seemed like trendy lightweights to me. But NAIPAUL?? Surely any editor should be able to recognize writing of that quality!