Category: Awards

I’m so glad that Tomb of Sand has won the 2022 International Booker Prize. First and foremost, it’s an excellent book, a joy to read.

The International Booker has built up a track record of shining a light on fiction from less commonly translated languages. I hope this win helps bring literature from Indian languages to a wider audience (and that it helps encourage more publishers…).

What I like most of all is that Tomb of Sand got to this position because of people’s passion for it. There is no compromise in the writing, translation, publishing, or indeed the prizegiving. Congratulations to author Geetanjali Shree, translator Daisy Rockwell and publisher Tilted Axis Press for their win, and thanks to everyone at the Booker for a great result!

Today’s the day: the end of this year’s International Booker cycle, when we find out the official winner this evening. Before then, it’s time for the shadow panel to announce our winner. We chose our own shadow shortlist, and have voted amongst ourselves, awarding the books 10, 7, 5, 3, 2 or 1 points. In the end, there was only one point between the winner and runner-up.

It is my pleasure to announce that this year’s shadow winner, with a grand total of 60 points, is…

Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, tr. Anton Hur (Honford Star)

Cursed Bunny was my favourite book on the longlist, a story collection that will stay with me for a long time.

We also want to give an honourable mention to our second place book: Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, tr. Daisy Rockwell (Tilted Axis Press). I didn’t get to review the book (maybe later), but it was actually my second choice from the longlist, a sprawling tapestry of linguistic exuberance.

Thanks to my fellow shadow panellists Tony, Stu, Meredith, Frances, Vivek, Oisin, Paul and Areeb – excellent companions for this journey, as always.

Now, it’s over to the official judges…

We now have our longlist for this year’s International Booker Prize, and it’s a striking selection:

• Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur (Honford Star)
• After the Sun by Jonas Eika, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Hellberg (Lolli Editions)
• A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen (Jonathan Cape)
• The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman, translated from French by Leslie Camhi (Virago)
• Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd (Picador)
• Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated from Korean by Anton Hur (Tilted Axis Press)
• Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao (Tilted Axis Press)
• Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle (Charco Press)
• Phenotypes by Paulo Scott, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (And Other Stories)
• Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell (Tilted Axis Press)
• The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft (Fitzcarraldo Editions)

Tony has posted the Shadow Panel’s response on his blog, so I won’t say too much more myself. But, if you think back to the last time David Grossman was longlisted for this prize, five years ago, that was a very different longlist: mostly European, five titles from Penguin Random House imprints. This year, most of the authors are from outside of Europe, and two small publishers (Fitzcarraldo and Tilted Axis) make up almost half of the nominated books. I’m really pleased by that change.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll be reading and reviewing what I can from the longlist, along with the rest of the Shadow Panel. To date, I have read four from the longlist but reviewed only one – and it will take a very special book to dislodge Elena Knows as my favourite. Still, this is all about discovering good books, so let’s go for it.

There was never any chance that the International Booker Prize judges would choose the same winner as the shadow panel this year, because we went for Minor Detail, which didn’t make it to the official shortlist (though it should have, if you ask me).

However, I’m pleased because the jury chose my favourite book from the official shortlist, which is…

At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop (tr. Anna Moschovakis)

Congratulations to the winners!

The official winner of this year’s International Booker Prize will be announced later today. Before then, it’s time to announce the shadow panel’s winner. We choose a winner from our own shadow shortlist, so sometimes it matches the official result, and sometimes… Well, read on.

This was our tenth year of shadowing the International Booker (and its predecessor, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize), but it was also a year of some firsts. We were able to meet virtually via Zoom for the first time – no mean feat when we have members in the UK, Australia, India and USA. We also introduced a ‘Eurovision-style’ scoring system for the shadow shortlist, where each panel member ranked the titles and gave them 10 points, 7, 5, 3, 2 and 1. After adding up the scores, we can now reveal the results:

In 6th place, with 25 points… Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý (tr. Nichola Smalley).

In 5th place, with 31 points… At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop (tr. Anna Moschovakis).

In 4th place, with 37 points… The Employees by Olga Ravn (tr. Martin Aitken).

In 3rd place, with 39 points… When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut (tr. Adrian Nathan West).

In 2nd place, with 52 points… In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova (tr. Sasha Dugdale).

Which means our shadow winner, with a grand total of 68 points, is…

Minor Detail by Adania Shibli (tr. Elisabeth Jaquette)

This is only the second time in shadow panel history that our winner hasn’t appeared on the official shortlist. It’s also another strong showing for Fitzcarraldo Editions, who have published four of our five shadow winners since 2017, and took the top two slots this year.

Congratulations to the shadow winners, and thanks to my fellow shadow panellists: Tony, Stu, Bellezza, Vivek, Frances, Areeb, Barbara and Oisin. It’s been another fun year – I wonder what the official jury will have chosen?

Read my other posts on the 2021 International Booker Prize here.

After the official International Booker Prize shortlist last month, we on the shadow panel are ready to reveal our shortlist. We’ve scored our reading, crunched the numbers, and this is what rose to the top for us:

• At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis (Pushkin Press).
• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press).
• The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (Lolli Editions).
• Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
• In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
• Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories).

For the first time, our group shortlist matches my personal top six – so, as you can imagine, I’m especially happy with this selection. The International Booker winner will be announced on Wednesday 2 June, and we’ll have our shadow winner by then as well.

Read my other posts on the 2021 International Booker Prize here.