I promised myself that this year I would read the Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist. I’ve always found it an interesting prize to follow, and I’ve enjoyed the last few months as a subscriber to their book of the month – but I’ve never actually read along with it. Time to change that.
The 2021 longlist was announced yesterday, and here’s what we’ve got:
A Musical Offering by Luis Sagasti, tr. Fionn Petch (Charco Press)
The Appointment by Katharina Volckmer (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
To date, I’ve read four of those and reviewed three (links above). Mordew was one of my favourite books from last year. Mr. Beethoven and The Mermaid of Black Conch were not far behind. The other one I’ve read so far is A Musical Offering, which is so far away from what I’d usually read that I didn’t really appreciate it properly – so a re-read is in order.
I love that, even though I’ve become reasonably knowledgeable about small presses over the years, the Republic of Consciousness can still shine a light on books and publishers I’ve never heard of. Well, it’s time to get acquainted.
It’s time for the Goldsmiths Prize, for “fiction that breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form.” What an intriguing shortlist we have this year:
Mr. Beethoven by Paul Griffiths (Henningham Family Press)
The only one of these I’ve read so far is The Mermaid of Black Conch (review linked above). I hadn’t really thought of it in connection with the Goldsmiths, but now I think about its variety of voices, I can see that it deserves its place.
There are two books that I’m especially pleased to see on the shortlist. I first read Anakana Schofield when her previous novel, Martin John, was shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize in 2016. I loved that book and can’t wait to see what Bina is like. M. John Harrison is an author I always find challenging and compelling: it took three attempts before Viriconium clicked, but when it finally did… The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again is a book I’ve wanted to read, and I’m happy it has been recognised by the Goldsmiths.
Elsewhere on the list, I enjoyed Xiaolu Guo’s UFO in Her Eyes a few years ago, so I’m looking forward to reading her again. I don’t really know anything about Paul Griffiths or Mr. Beethoven, but I have heard of Henningham Family Press through keeping an eye on the small press scene. It’s a two-person operation which I hear publishes some beautiful books – consider me intrigued.
Which leaves the book I’m not sure about, Meanwhile in Dopamine City. I’ve never really felt like reading DBC Pierre, whose work seems to be an acquired taste. Well, you never know.
The winner of this year’s Goldsmiths Prize will be announced on 11 November. I may not get through the whole shortlist by then, but I am planning to read and review them all. It should be fun.
The official announcement of the winner of the 2020 International Booker Prize has been postponed until later in the summer, to give readers more time to get and read copies of the novels.
But our shadow jury of bloggers and reviewers of translated fiction has already completed our reading and re-reading, so it seems fitting to announce our Shadow Winner on the original date of May 19th.
As a reminder our own shortlist was, in alphabetical order of the original author’s name:
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar (Farsi – Iran), tr. Anonymous (Europa Editions) The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (Norwegian – Norway), tr. Damion Searls (Fitzcarraldo Editions) Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (Spanish – Mexico), tr. Sophie Hughes (Fitzcarraldo Editions) The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Japanese – Japan), tr. Stephen Snyder (Harvill Secker) Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano (French – France), tr. Sophie Lewis & Jennifer Higgins (Peirene Press) The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Dutch – Netherlands), tr. Michele Hutchison (Faber & Faber)
We were collectively impressed with all of these books, indeed all six had their champions among us.
And three books in particular were so close in our deliberations and our voting that it was almost tempting to go one further than last year’s anglophone Booker judges. But instead we’ve kept with one winner, but decided to acknowledge two books as Runners-Up.
Runners-Up: The Other Name: Septology I-II and The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
Jon Fosse’s “slow prose”, unfolding his story in one long, flowing stream that reads with great fluidity, took us deep inside his narrator Asle’s mind and thoughts. And we were caught up in the heady mixture of Persian myth, story-telling and magic realism of The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, a true ode to literature and to the deeply soothing role books and stories play in our survival of trauma.
But the winner of our 2020 Shadow Jury Prize is: Hurricane Season, written by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
Comments from some of our judges:
“Hurricane Season is an appropriate title for a novel that roars into the unsuspecting reader’s mind, with its long and winding sentences, and its refusal to flinch from the brutalities of its world.”
“There is anger, pain, and the understanding of the role literature plays when it comes to compassion and empathy.”
“As author M. John Harrison said of Melchor’s novel ‘…she had shown me things I needed to be faced with.’ and expanded my understanding of lives so very different from my own.”
“It unflinchingly portrayed a world apart from us and artfully created another layer of distance from subject through the use of mythologized violence. That she both creates distance and ‘makes us look’ simultaneously was incredibly powerful for me.”
“Melchor’s prose, in Hughes’s stunning translation, is raw, brutal and so, so necessary.”
“As readers and intrepid voyagers down Melchor’s Dante-like vision, we are like riveted inmates, incarcerated either by law or by economics or gender, who stand to witness the depravity, despair and pain being inflicted upon this part of the world. The real evidence and reward here is not in unmasking the Witch’s killer or killers or in finding out why this happened, the true recompense of Melchor’s novel is to pay tribute by listening to the dead’s testimony,‘there is no treasure in there, no gold or silver or diamonds or anything more than a searing pain that refuses to go away.’”
And our congratulations extend to the publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions who provided two of our top three, and also now have two Shadow Prize wins in three years.
Now it’s over to the official jury for their decision.
We’ve read the books (all the longlisted titles were read by at least eight of our eleven panellists, and most were read by at least ten). We’ve given our scores, crunched the numbers, and now we can present our shadow shortlist for this year’s Man Booker International Prize:
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, tr. Marilyn Booth (Sandstone Press).
The Years by Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
The Faculty of Dreams by Sara Stridsberg, tr. Deborah Bragan-Turner (MacLehose Press).
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, tr. Anne McLean (MacLehose Press).
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zeran, tr. Sophie Hughes (And Other Stories).
The first thing to note here is the degree of overlap with the official shortlist: only one book is different (we have The Faculty of Dreams rather than The Pine Islands). Sadly, this similarity has come about in part because we found the longlist quite weak overall, so there weren’t as many good books to choose from as there have been in the past.
Nevertheless, there are some fine books on this shortlist, and we have interesting discussions in store before we choose a winner. The official Man Booker International winner will be announced on the evening of 21 May, and we’ll reveal our shadow winner shortly before then.
Read my other posts on the 2019 Man Booker International Prizehere.
The official shortlist for this year’s Man Booker International Prize was announced on Tuesday:
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, tr. Marilyn Booth (Sandstone Press).
The Years by Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann, tr. Jen Calleja (Serpent’s Tail).
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, tr. Anne McLean (MacLehose Press).
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zeran, tr. Sophie Hughes (And Other Stories).
Generally speaking, I think this is a good shortlist. I do have my reservations: I’m not keen on The Pine Islands, and this list leaves off my favourite book from the longlist (The Faculty of Dreams, which I’ll be reviewing next). But you can’t go far wrong with the rest of the shortlist.
We’ll be announcing the shadow panel’s shortlist next Thursday, 18 April. It’s not finalised yet, but it should make an interesting point of comparison with the official shortlist.
Read my other posts on the 2019 Man Booker International Prizehere.
It’s that time of year again: time for the Man Booker International Prize. As ever, I will be reading along with the shadow panel. This year, I tried to make an effort to get ahead by reading more in advance (I’d read 16 eligible titles, which is more than usual). The longlist was announced today:
Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, tr. Marilyn Booth (Oman, Sandstone Press).
Love in the New Millennium by Can Xue, tr. Annelise Finegan Wasmoen (China, Yale University Press).
The Years by Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L. Strayer (France, Fitzcarraldo Editions).
At Dusk by Hwang Sok-yong, tr. Sora Kim-Russell (South Korea, Scribe).
Jokes for the Gunmen by Mazen Maarouf, tr. Jonathan Wright (Palestine/Iceland, Granta).
Four Soldiers by Hubert Mingarelli, tr. Sam Taylor (France, Granta).
The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann, tr. Jen Calleja (Germany, Serpent’s Tail).
Mouthful of Birds by Samanta Schweblin, tr. Megan McDowell (Argentina, Oneworld).
The Faculty of Dreams by Sara Stridsberg, tr. Deborah Bragan-Turner (Sweden, MacLehose Press).
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Poland, Fitzcarraldo Editions).
The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, tr. Anne McLean (Colombia, MacLehose Press).
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zeran, tr. Sophie Hughes (Chile, And Other Stories).
After all my preparation, I have read a grand total of one book on this list, which just goes to show how many ways this prize can go. Much of this list is an unknown quantity to me: even the book I’ve read (Drive Your Plow) is one I’ll have to read again, because I didn’t know what I thought of it the first time. I’m disappointed that Convenience Store Woman and T Singer especially didn’t make the cut, but I am hopeful of finding gems on the longlist; in particular, I’m looking forward to reading Samanta Schweblin again, having loved Fever Dream.
More generally, I’m pleased to see such a strong showing for small publishers (particular congratulations to Scribe and Sandstone, who are longlisted for the first time). It’s also notable that the list as a whole skews away from Europe and male writers.
(A couple of housekeeping points: although The Years is part of Fitzcarraldo’s essay list, it was published as a novel in France, and was accepted for submission by the Booker after discussion with the publisher. The Faculty of Dreams and The Pine Islands were due to be published in April, but have both been brought forward to 21 March).
The official MBIP shortlist will be announced on 9 April, with the winner to follow on 21 May. Until then, I will be reading and reviewing as many of the books as I can. Let’s go!
I’m late in covering this, as the Man Booker International winner was announced last Wednesday. Although the official and shadow shortlists had only two books in common, the judges came to the same conclusion as the shadow panel: Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (tr. Jennifer Croft) took the Prize. Congratulations to both author and translator, and of course to publisher Fitzcarraldo Editions.
It’s been ten weeks since the Man Booker International Prize longlist was announced, and in that time the Shadow Panel has been working away in the background, reading frantically while discussing the merits and flaws of the selected titles. From the thirteen books we were given by the official judges, we chose a shortlist of six (only two of which made the official cut!), and off we set again, to reread as much as possible in the time we had. Then we discussed the books a little more before voting for our favourites, culminating in the choice of our favourite work of translated fiction from the previous year’s crop. And who might that be?
THE WINNER OF THE 2018 SHADOW MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE IS:
OLGA TOKARCZUK’S FLIGHTS
(FITZCARRALDO EDITIONS, TRANSLATED BY JENNIFER CROFT)
Congratulations to all involved! While not a unanimous decision, Flights easily won the majority of votes from our judges. In fact, in the seven years we’ve been shadowing the prizes (IFFP, then MBIP), this was the clearest winner by far, showing how impressed we were by Tokarczuk’s integration of seemingly disparate pieces into a mesmerising whole. Thanks must also go to Croft for her excellent work on the book – as always, it’s only with the help of the translator that we’re able to read this book at all…
A special mention should also go to Fitzcarraldo Editions. This is their second consecutive MBIP Shadow Prize (we selected Mathias Énard’s Compass as our winner for 2017), and having also come close with Énard’s Zone in 2015 (which wasn’t even selected for the official IFFP list that year!), they have proved to be one of the UK’s rising stars of fiction (and non-fiction) in translation. We look forward to seeing whether they can continue to provide titles for the longlist in future years.
*****
And that’s it for 2018…
Firstly, thank you to the rest of our Shadow Panel. While Tony, Bellezza and Lori were around to help once more, it was a new-look team this year, with Paul, Vivek, Naomi, Oisin and Frances joining the crew. It’s been fascinating to compare our opinions about the books, even (or especially!) when we disagreed about them. Here’s hoping that we can do it all again next year!
Secondly, a shout-out to all the readers and commenters out there. It’s heartening to have people appreciate our endeavours, and when people say that they’re following the prize vicariously through our reviews and comments, even if they don’t have time to read all the books themselves, it makes us feel as if the whole process is worth it.
Finally, thank you to the official judges for taking the time to read an awful lot of books in order to select the cream of the crop (although occasionally there’s a suspicion that the milk has gone rather sour…). We hope that their final choice (to be announced about twenty-four hours after ours) is a worthy winner to round off this year’s prize. Who will it be? Come back soon to find out…
Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Jennifer Croft (Poland, Fitzcarraldo Editions).
I ended up prioritising reading over reviewing this year, so I haven’t been talking much about the longlist on here. Suffice it to say that my two favourite books were Frankenstein in Baghdad and The White Book (which I still hope to review), so I’m pleased to see them both on the shortlist.
We’ll be announcing the shadow panel’s shortlist this coming Thursday. Watch this space…
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