booklit

Following on from the 25th Anniversary ‘Booker Of Bookers’ in 1993, comes the 40th Anniversary ‘Best Of The Booker’, in which a panel of judges have saved the public the bother of whittling down all forty-one eligible titles to a more manageable six. Or, to put it another way, ensured that Life Of Pi, which would likely top a proper public vote, can’t win.

The shortlist, then, is:

• The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1995)
• Oscar And Lucinda, Peter Carey (1988)
• Disgrace, J.M. Coetzee (1999)
• The Siege Of Krishnapur, J.G. Farrell (1973)
• The Conservationist, Nadine Gordimer (1974)
• Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie (1981)

The panel of judges were the biographer, novelist and critic Victoria Glendinning, (chair); writer and broadcaster Mariella Frostrup; and John Mullan, Professor of English at University College, London.

In addition, Glendinning said:

‘It was a great experience, revisiting all the Booker and Man Booker Prize winners, and very tough arriving at the shortlist - but we really feel that the six novels we picked represent the best fiction-writing of the past forty years and that each one of them will stand the test of time. As to which of the six is the most important, and the most enjoyable, the Best of Booker - that is up to the readers to decide.’

While I’ve only read one of the titles listed, the list seems fair by all accounts, as all of the titles share a certain reknown that many other Booker winners don’t (Paul Scott’s Staying On anyone?) but I’m saddened to see that Kazuo Ishiguro’s The Remains Of The Day didn’t make the final cut. Perhaps this shows what we’ve known all along regarding Booker judging panels in that they are out of touch with the readers. But we all know that the most popular book isn’t always the best book otherwise Harry Potter books would have been regular candidates for the regular Booker. So public be damned. Although it will no doubt come to pass that Midnight’s Children, as it was in 1993, will continue to reign as the Best of the Booker.

One other thing: it is strange to see Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist listed as potentially the Best of the Booker since it couldn’t hold its own against Stanley Middleton’s Holiday, back in 1974, when both books scooped the prize. Middleton, where are you now?

Whittled down from over 100 titles to a longlist of 17 announced in January, the titles were again reduced in March to a final 6. And now, in a ceremony this evening, the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has been announced. The 2008 Prize has gone to Paul Verhaeghen for his own translation from the Dutch of Omega Minor, published by Dalkey Archive.

Since the £10,000 prize is split between both author and translator, Verhaeghan is eligible to the full amount but, instead, declined the money, much as he had done with the Flemish Culture Award. Instead, referencing the war in Iraq, he has asked for the money to be donated to the American Civil Liberties Union because:

“Withholding the tax portion of those 10,000 pounds from the US Treasury will shorten the war by a mere eye-blink-its cost is currently 3,810 dollar per second-but the ACLU can use that money to great effect in their legal battles against torture, detainee abuse, and the silence surrounding it.”

You can read his full non-acceptance speech on the Dalkey Archive site.

There’s not much I can say on the book as I’ve not read it. I’ve not even seen a copy in any book stores although I’m sure that will soon change. I’m a tad unhappy with myself for not reading it - or, indeed, any of the six shortlisted titles - as I had intended to do. But as one of my countrymen once said, “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley” and I’ll just have to accept that.

If anyone is interested in discussing Paul Verhaeghen’s Omega Minor, there’s a thread on it over on the World Literature Forum. There’s also one on the subject of the prize itself.

In a world where books come and go at a seemingly increasing rate, so fast that by the time the Booker, Costas, and Orange have been won, attention turns to the next year’s hopefuls, praise be to the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. This is one award that feels more laidback, if only because the titles making its longlist, as regards publication, are quite a bit behind the crowd.

Nominations to the longlist come from participating libraries worldwide, which gives the award a unique slant, since titles in other awards typically are nominated by their publishers. And what a longlist it was, coming in string with a phenomenal 137 titles. Who’d be a judge? But judges there are, and they’ve whittled down the list to a more manageable eight.

The shortlist for 2008 is:

• The Speed Of Light, Javier Cercas
• The Sweet And Simple Kind, Yasmine Gooneraratne
• De Niro’s Game, Rawi Hage
• Dreams Of Speaking, Gail Jones
• Let It Be Morning, Sayed Kashua
• The Attack, Yasmina Khadra
• The Woman Who Waited, Andreï Makine
• Winterwood, Patrick McCabe

Of the titles, half are in translation, which is something else that makes the IMPAC Dublin an interesting award. But while it offers up a number of titles that may have been missed first time round, there’s still the sense that in the fast moving world of publishing, the titles, no matter how timeless they may come to be, are a little dated. Whoever wins won’t care, though, as the prize is €100,000 (split 75%/25% to author/translator in instances of translated works).

The winner will be announced on 12th June, 2008.

It’s that time of year again. No, not Easter, but for the announcement of the UK’s least interesting literary prizes. With the Man Booker there’s the sense that publishers are submitting the best of the best (if never to see them win) and the Costas, let’s face it, are there to mop up the best of the rest. But the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction? It proudly claims to be “the UK’s only annual book award for fiction written by a woman”. But what relevance does it have today when even by its own admission, as per its FAQ page, it’s set out what it achieved to do (especially with women scooping the Nobel, the Man Booker, and the Costa Best Book in 2007) :

At the time it was set up the considerable achievements of women novelists were often passed over by the major literary prizes.

The founders of the Orange Broadband Prize for Fiction wanted to do something about that. Which they did, very successfully.

Many years on from its creation and nobody can say women novelists are passed over by the major literary prizes.

As happens every year, a battle of the sexes (with each side infighting, too) arises and there’s no exception this year with novelist Tim Lott firing the opening salvo by declaring the prize “a sexist con trick”:

Women are predominant, in terms of numbers and power, in most of the major publishing houses and agencies. They sell most of the books, into a market that largely comprises women readers. They are favoured by what is overwhelmingly the most important publishing prize (the Richard and Judy list), and comprise most of the reading groups that drive sales. Girls in schools are more literate than boys, and pupils are taught reading mainly by female teachers promoting mainly female writers.

Following up on this, in the Times were John Sutherland’s claim that “ghettoising women writers did them more harm them good” and A.S Byatt’s declaration of the award being sexist and that she doesn’t allow her novels to be submitted for consideration. Anita Brookner, apparently, also feels the same. Back in 1998 Nadine Gordimer refused to be shortlisted for the prize on the grounds that it recognises only women writers. Either way, Times editor, Erica Wagner, has tried to get the last word in, urging detractors to “get over it”:

Get over the idea that prizes given to novels – of any kind, stripe, gender or nationality – can, in any way whatsoever, be described as “fair”.

Wagner’s claim is that if they have done anything wrong it’s the appointment of Lily Allen to the judging panel. Big deal! Referring back to the FAQs, the prize is exclusively judged by women “to celebrate women’s critical views as well as their writing”. Although it’s all supposition about Allen’s critical ability, the prize doesn’t set such a bar on its judges - as long as they have views.

On discussing the creation of the longlist the chair of the judges, Kirsty Lang, claims that the misery memoir has infected fiction penned by women:

Reading 120 books I did find myself thinking, ‘Oh god, not another dead baby’,” said Kirsty Lang, as the longlist for the prize was announced. “There were a hell of a lot of abused children and family secrets.”

The others responsible for this year’s longlist are Guardian Review editor Lisa Allardice, writer Bel Mooney, novelist Philippa Gregory, and singer Lily Allen.

The longlist, then, is as follows:

• The Blood of Flowers, Anita Amirrezvani
• The Room of Lost Things, Stella Duffy
• The Keep, Jennifer Egan
• The Gathering, Anne Enright
• The Clothes on Their Backs, Linda Grant
• The Master Bedroom, Tessa Hadley
• Fault Lines, Nancy Huston
• Sorry, Gail Jones
• The Outcast, Sadie Jones
• The Voluptuous Delights of Peanut Butter and Jam, Lauren Liebenberg
• When We Were Bad, Charlotte Mendelson
• In The Dark, Deborah Moggach
• Mistress, Anita Nair
• Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O’Neill
• The Bastard of Istanbul, Elif Shafak
• The Septembers of Shiraz, Dalia Sofer
• The End of Mr Y, Scarlett Thomas
• Monster Love, Carol Topolski
• The Road Home, Rose Tremain
• Lottery, Patricia Wood

So twenty titles, seven debuts, and no place for big hitters like A.L Kennedy’s Day, Nicola Barker’s Darkmans, or Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods. Given the complaint about misery memoirs, it’s a wonder Anne Enright’s The Gathering made the cut.

The sad thing is that by directing the prize at women writers and readers it is effectively depriving itself of the women writing the types of books the prize would no doubt like to promote but have the sense to see that it has met its own goals and ran its course and that positive discrimination is still discrimination. And if a women takes the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction when it’s announced next month then that must surely put another question mark over the Orange Prize’s relevance.

The shortlist will be announced on 15th April, 2008, with the eventual award ceremony taking place on 4th June, 2008.

It’s been just over a month now and the judges have obviously read much more of the longlisted titles than me, who seemed more interested in reading everything else rather than those suggested. But I did get through three of them (The Moon Opera by Bi Feiyu, The Book Of Words by Jenny Erpenbeck, and Agamemnon’s Daugher by Ismail Kadare, reviews of the Erpenbeck forthcoming) and had a couple of aborted attempts at Alaa Al Aswany’s The Yacoubian Building and Erwin Mortier’s Shutterspeed. It would seem I needn’t have bothered as none of these titles has made the final six.

The shortlisted titles are:

• Castorp, Paweł Huelle (Antonia Lloyd Jones, Polish, Serpent’s Tail)
• Measuring The World, Daniel Kehlmann (Carol Brown Janeway, German, Quercus)
• Gregorius, Bengt Ohlsson (Silvester Mazzarella, Swedish, Portobello Books)
• The Model, Lars Saabye Christensen (Don Barlett, Norwegian, Arcadia Books)
• The Way Of The Women, Marlene van Niekerk (Michiel do Heyns, Afrikaans, Little, Brown)
• Omega Minor, Paul Verhaeghen (Paul Verhaeghen, Dutch, Dalkey Archive Press)

The bracketed information includes translator, original language, and publisher respectively.

Luckily, with the exception of Omega Minor, I have the shortlist in my possession and expect that, even if I couldn’t find the motivation to read all seventeen in a single month, I can see my way to reading all titles before the award ceremony on May 8th.

I have also been wondering whether it may be prudent to read Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain prior to reading Paweł Huelle’s Castorp. With it being a prequel of sorts, it’s a harder decision than that surrounding the reading of Hjalmar Söderberg’s Doctor Glas as Bengt Ohlsson’s Gregorius takes that classic novel and tells the story from another character’s point of view.

Antonia Byatt, Director of Literature Strategy at Arts Council England said:

“The judges had a hard task getting down to the final six, but have chosen a shortlist of very accomplished books that demonstrate a huge variety of ideas, stories and adventurous writing from around the world. The authors’ ability to introduce readers to the rich diversity of life illustrates why making international writing in translation available to everyone is so important.”

As far as “around the world” goes, the shortlist feels very similar in terms of language, since five of the six are translated from Germanic languages. And in terms of geography, all authors’ respective countries are huddled together with the exception of Marlene van Niekerk’s. South Africa, however, shares a similar longitude. It seems more like adventurous writing from a wedge of the world. But, regardless, the shortlist is an interesting mix of titles and, despite the absence of Bi Feiyu’s The Moon Opera, which I truly enjoyed, I look forward to being surprised by what has been shortlisted and to mopping up a few other titles along the way.

It must be a revolving door of opinions at the offices of Arts Council England, as they are either pulling funding from the subsidisation of translation or, in fact, promoting it, as per their literature policy. For today, they have announced the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008, in association with Champagne Taittinger.

The longlist comprises of seventeen books, whittled down from over ninety, all looking to scoop the £10,000 prize, divided equally between author and translator. Previous winners have included Orhan Pamuk, Milan Kundera, and José Saramago.

The longlisted titles are:

• The Yacoubian Building, Alaa al Aswany (Humphrey Davies, Arabic, Fourth Estate)
• Book of Words, Jenny Erpenbeck (Susan Bernofsky, German, Portobello Books)
• The Moon Opera, Bi Feiyu (Howard Goldblatt, Chinese, Telegram Books)
• Castorp, Pawel Huelle (Antonia Lloyd Jones, Polish, Serpent’s Tail)
• Agamemnon’s Daughter, Ismail Kadare (David Bellos, French, Canongate)
• Let It Be Morning, Sayed Kashua (Miriam Shlesinger, Hebrew, Atlantic Books)
• Measuring The World, Daniel Kehlmann (Carol Brown Janeway, German, Quercus)
• Gregorius, Bengt Ohlsson (Silvester Mazzarella, Swedish, Portobello Books)
• Shutterspeed, Erwin Mortier (Ina Rilke, Dutch, Harvill Secker)
• The Past, Alan Pauls (Nick Caistor, Spanish, Harvill Secker)
• Rivers Of Babylon, Peter Pist’anek (Peter Petro, Slovak, Garnett Press)
• Delirium, Laura Restrepo (Natasha Wimmer, Spanish, Harvill Secker)
• The Model, Lars Saabye Christensen (Don Barlett, Norwegian, Arcadia Books)
• Bahia Blues, Yasmina Traboulsi (Polly McLean, French, Arcadia Books)
• The Way Of The Women, Marlene van Niekerk (Michiel do Heyns, Afrikaans, Little, Brown)
• Omega Minor, Paul Verhaeghen (Paul Verhaeghen, Dutch, Dalkey Archive Press)
• Montano, Enrique Vilas-Matas (Jonathan Dunne, Spanish, Harvill Secker)

The bracketed information includes translator, original language, and publisher respectively.

Here’s the blurb:

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize celebrates an exceptional work of fiction by a living author which has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom in the last year. This year’s longlist reflects the international scope of the prize and includes writers working in Hebrew, Afrikaans, Chinese and Arabic. Among the longlisted authors is Ismail Kadare, the inaugural Man Booker International Prize winner.

The judges for this year’s award are:

• Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent;
• Abdulrazak Gurnah, writer and teacher;
• Florence Noiville, literary editor of Le Monde; and
• Kate Griffin, Arts Council England literature officer.

Antonia Byatt of the Arts Council England had this to say on the longlist:

“This year’s long list is a fantastic demonstration of the rich range and quality of fiction in translation being published in Britain today. It’s wonderful to see so many languages represented from all round the world: a feast for readers and quite a challenge for the judges in making a decision!”

Boyd Tonkin discusses the list at the Independent, mentioning that the titles will be reduced to a shortlist of six by the end of February, with the eventual winner being announced in May.

Aside from the slight amusement of Paul Verhaeghen being in with a chance to take the whole pot for himself, it’s an interesting list as I’m only aware of a handful of the titles, and have read none of them. It’s also interesting to see Arcadia having two titles there, given the recent withdrawal of a quarter of their Arts Council funding.

But regardless of who wins, the joy is in having new names brought to your attention and there are many new ones here. I’ll be hoping to review as many of these titles as I can get my hands on in the run up to the shortlist, just so I can nod my head vigorously in agreement with the decision or invoke a pox on the judges otherwise.

EDIT: Reviews will be linked to as and when they appear on booklit.