The Booker International Prize announced on Tuesday the 13 books nominated for this year’s edition, by authors from 12 countries and 11 languages.
The nominees for the edition of the prize, which recognizes a literary work translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, are the Catalan Eva Baltasar, with boulderthe South Korean Cheon Myeong-kwan, with whalethe French Maryse Condé, with The Gospel According to the New Worldand the Ivorian Armand Gbaka-Brédé (who signs as GauZ’), by Standing heavy.
Also mentioned are Bulgarian Georgi Gospodinov, met Time shelterthe Norwegian Vigdis Hjorth, with Is mother deadthe Ukrainian Andrei Kurkov, with Jimi Hendrix Live in Lvivthe Frenchman Laurent Mauvignier, for The birthdaypartythe German Clemens Meyer, in front While we were dreamingthe Indian Perumal Murugan, by Pyrethe Mexican Guadalupe Nettel, with Still bornthe Swedish Amanda Svensson, for A system so amazing it’s blindingand the Chinese Zou Jingzhi, with Ninth building.
The selection was made by a jury chaired by writer Leila Slimani and comprising translator Uilleam Blacker, writer Tan Twan Eng, critic Parul Sehgal and literary editor Frederick Studemann of the Financial Times.
“What was most rewarding about this experience was reading books from all over the world, with an extraordinary variety of form and content. Each of the judges has a different taste and that’s what we’ve tried to reflect in this list. It celebrates the variety and diversity of today’s literary output, the different ways the novel can be seen”said Slimani, quoted in the statement.
The organization noted that at age 89, Maryse Condé is the oldest author ever nominated for the award, with three writers (GauZ’, Zou Jingzhi and Amanda Svensson) nominated with debuts in English.
GauZ’ is a writer, editor and photographer who lived in Paris as an undocumented student, where he also worked as a security guard (a profession he shared in the past with German Clemens Meyer), before returning to his native Ivory Coast.
The list of finalists for the Booker International Prize will be announced at the London Book Fair on 18 April, with a prize of £5,000 for the books reaching that stage, split in half for author and translator.
The winning book will be announced on 23 May, with a prize of £50,000, also split equally between author and translator.
None of the works mentioned have been published in Portugal, although some authors have books published in Portuguese territory, such as Andrei Kurkov (gray beesby Porto Editora, last September), Guadalupe Nettel (The body I was born inby Teodolito, in 2013), Vigdis Hjorth (Heritageby Livros do Brasil, in 2021) and Eva Baltasar (permafrostby Kalandraka, in 2021).
Source: DN
