International Booker Prize

[namelesshere]

The International Booker is a curious beast... It produces shortlists I really admire, but winners I don't (Flights excepted). I know that's just my personal preference - I think I'm just waiting for it to have it's "Milkman" moment (or "The Narrow Road to the Deep North" moment, but that's less snappy) for me, where it spotlights a winner I absolutely love but would otherwise not have read.

That being said, during the period it was trying to be the Nobel Prize, it did fantastic work.

 

[namelesshere]

Shortlist: https://thebookerprizes.com/international-booker/2021

Article (one of many I'm sure, but the one I found first): https://www.theguardian.com/books/2...ed-by-books-pushing-the-boundaries-of-fiction

 

[redhead]

Not surprised Can Xue didn’t make the cut, but I’m a bit shocked to see The War of the Poor on there. Wonder what the judge(s) arguments about its inclusion were.

 

[Liam]

^Seriously, it's an 80-pp. long historical essay, ?

 

[redhead]

I wish it was a proper historical essay, then it would probably be much better. As it is, I thought it was too fictional and surface-level to really work as an essay, too brief to work as a biography, and too academic and essay-like to work as historical fiction. Like, what am I supposed to make of this? I suppose it was selected because it has some timely (and, unfortunately, timeless) themes about class disparity, but it’s done in a pretty shallow way; I’m sure there must have been some other eligible works that tackled the same themes in a more adroit manner.

 

[Stiffelio]

I'm glad Mariana Enríquez made it into the shortlist. The Danger of Smoking in Bed is quite a gem of a collection: surrealistic? gothic? perverse? Please, read it and tell me what you think.

 

[garzuit]

What´s up with English translators and their fondness of changing the titles of books? This is something that I have only seen in that language. Labatut's novel title should be translated as something like "A frightful greenery", instead it's When We Cease to Understand the World in English?
Niklas Natt Och Dag novel "1793" became... "The Wolf and The Watchman"? WTF? Plus, that title kind of spoiled part of the plot.

 

[lucasdiniz]

I'm glad Mariana Enríquez made it into the shortlist. The Danger of Smoking in Bed is quite a gem of a collection: surrealistic? gothic? perverse? Please, read it and tell me what you think.

Have you read Things We Lost in the Fire? I found it to be quite superior to the collection that was shortlisted. Maybe it's because it's her latest and she improved a lot after publishing the first one, I don't know. Overall, I'm glad she's getting all this recognition. She deserves it so so much.

 

[hayden]

I wish it was a proper historical essay, then it would probably be much better. As it is, I thought it was too fictional and surface-level to really work as an essay, too brief to work as a biography, and too academic and essay-like to work as historical fiction. Like, what am I supposed to make of this? I suppose it was selected because it has some timely (and, unfortunately, timeless) themes about class disparity, but it’s done in a pretty shallow way; I’m sure there must have been some other eligible works that tackled the same themes in a more adroit manner.

Agreed. Shocked to see it on the shortlist, especially over The Perfect Nine, Wretchedness, and Minor Detail, which I thought were are truly very good. I'm not even sure I would call The War of the Poor a book, let alone one worth reading. I finished it because it was short, but it only took me about 20 or so pages to realize I was wasting my time. It would be absolutely bizarre if it actually won. (I've yet to find a copy of When We Cease to Understand the World, but apparently it's quite good... going to keep an eye out for it).

 

[Leemo]

What´s up with English translators and their fondness of changing the titles of books? This is something that I have only seen in that language. Labatut's novel title should be translated as something like "A frightful greenery", instead it's When We Cease to Understand the World in English?
Niklas Natt Och Dag novel "1793" became... "The Wolf and The Watchman"? WTF? Plus, that title kind of spoiled part of the plot.

Good question! Reminds me of Donald Keene's preface to his translation of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, as in it Keene says that the direct translation of the title is actually "Disqualified From Being Human", which in my mind is a title that's far more apt for the story.

 

[Bartleby]

Nice roundtable with this year’s shortlisted books’ translators

Tomorrow is the announcement. I hope In Memory wins, but I can easily see At Night getting it; the greatest upset/shock would be The War of the Poor (I’ve been meaning to read it, despite some comments both here and elsewhere saying it doesn’t quite amount to much, but I keep skimming it and finding so many beautiful sentences, and gripping in their immediacy).

 

[redhead]

If anyone’s interested, you can livestream the announcement here at 1 pm est:

 

[Bartleby]

If anyone’s interested, you can livestream the announcement here at 1 pm est:

oh thanks!! Thought they would stream it on their fb page.

edit: oh turns out it's both on yt and on fb.

edit2: finally it's going to be announced! half an hour of readings .-.

knewww it

I've heard good things of At Night All Blood is Black, but the first pages don't draw me in, it feels a bit stilted... has anyone here read it?

 

[Daniel del Real]

Interesting winner. I would have loved Mariana Enríquez to win, but I had my eye on the Spanish translation of this novel for a while too.

 

[Bartleby]

I've heard good things of At Night All Blood is Black, but the first pages don't draw me in, it feels a bit stilted...

Lucy Hughes-Hallett, chair of the judges, was quoted in a Guardian article saying the book “is also a story about language – the protagonist does not speak much French, so it is a story written in French, which we read in English, about a man thinking in Wolof. Diop has done something very clever in creating a kind of incantatory language that somehow conveys that sense of what it is like to think outside your own language, as it were.”

so it kinda makes sense...perhaps the language’s effects click after a while...

she also said the book won by majority vote, stating it carefully: “I do not want to go further than that, as all six shortlisted authors were fantastic and I think it would be very invidious to go any further than to say that Diop’s book and Moschovakis’ translation were seen by a majority of us as the outstanding book,”

I keep thinking it’s a way to appease the other judges. I mean, it must be hard being someone well known and caring about one’s own image, to have everyone think you contributed to a given book that wasn’t the one you thought was best win.

 

[Dante]

I'm very happy about this prize! I remember I've been instantly hooked by this short French book when I read it almost 3 years ago. I've even tried to buy it for the publishing house I worked for, but it was already late (too bad).
Btw I consider it a well-deserved award, even if the book loses some of its strength going through the reading.

 

[Salixacaena]

The next round of judges have been announced and they include a comedienne who used to host The Great British Bake Off.

My hopes for the future of Booker as a whole continue to sink year after year. We may actually get a worse longlist than the last Booker (non-international) prize longlist (which I'd chalk up as being possibly the worst in the prize's history).

 

[namelesshere]

The next round of judges have been announced and they include a comedienne who used to host The Great British Bake Off.

My hopes for the future of Booker as a whole continue to sink year after year.

I wouldn't worry - Sue off Mel and Sue is incredibly smart and perceptive and I've no reason to suppose Mel off Mel and Sue is not the same. (And Sue was on the Booker jury in 2009 which is responsible for one of the greatest shortlists in Booker history, as far as I'm concerned (Wolf Hall, Coetzee's Summertime, Byatt's The Children's Book, Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, and Simon Mawer's wonderful The Glass Room).

 

[tiganeasca]

I wouldn't worry - Sue off Mel and Sue is incredibly smart and perceptive and I've no reason to suppose Mel off Mel and Sue is not the same. (And Sue was on the Booker jury in 2009 which is responsible for one of the greatest shortlists in Booker history, as far as I'm concerned (Wolf Hall, Coetzee's Summertime, Byatt's The Children's Book, Sarah Waters' The Little Stranger, and Simon Mawer's wonderful The Glass Room).

Interesting list. And while I am inclined to agree that Mel may be clever and perceptive and [fill in the blank], she is still an odd choice. Given the reach and breadth of (presumably) available authors, translators, and scholars, unless she has some connection to "LITERATURE" that is not immediately apparent, much as I enjoy her, I find her a strange addition to the generally impressive panel.

 

[kpjayan]

The next round of judges have been announced and they include a comedienne who used to host The Great British Bake Off.

I can see Singapore writer and translator Jeremy Tiang in the list. Some representation from this side of the world.