The shortlist's out for the new international Man Booker Prize. Eighten heavyweights from 13 counties. 5 of the nobel laureates, two of the Booker winners. Most of 'em I've read at least something by, four I've never heard of (my vast ignorance again, as no doubt Susan will be on hand to remind me!) - but I guess the great value of a prize like this is that it sets you on the trail of new and exciting reading.(Find it most odd, incidentally, that Rushdie is not on this list when Midnight's Children has been voted the Booker of Bookers.)
I would love to see the annual Man Booker prize become an international competition. Would love to see American writers compete on an even playing field and on an ongoing basis with British and Commonwealth writers and works in translation.
So who do you think will win in this competition? I hope it's Doris Lessing, who has written three of my all time favorite books The Grass is Singing, The Good Terrorist and The Golden Notebook. Margaret Atwood would be my second choice.
10 comments:
What an amazing list of writers and books! It's almost like a list of must-reads. And definitely better than the official lists because this one has a good mix of male and female writers and features writers from different parts of the world, too. It's almost like a World Literature List.
I'm not very familiar with Doris Lessing (altho I have seen her in person, but that doesn't count) but think Margaret Atwood is brilliant, so my vote (as if it counts) would go to Atwood.
However, I'm sad that Toni Morrison, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Literature, was not shortlisted.
You'd enjoy Lessing for sure. Yes, so many writers not on that list ... How did they make this decision?
Wow ... when did you get to see Lessing? Tell the story!
She came to give a talk on campus at UEA. I wrote about it, in the same piece about how Ishiguro pipped Bradbury for the Whitbread Book of the Year award. Here:
Creative Writing SchoolIt was a bit of a show-off piece, tho.
Enjoyed your entry. What are names for but to drop!
Yes, this is an exciting new territory where all the heavywieghts are in the fray. I think Rushdie is not there because he didn't have any book out last year. His new novel is coming this year. So, we should expect him to be there next time.
I was wondering about the new literary talents. Now that the prize has gone international, what chance do new voices (like Chimamanda Ngozi) have? Would they even make it to the shortlist? What do you think?
Zafar - I agrre with you wholeheartedly. We already know how brilliant most of these folks are and I'd love to see the names of new writers up there ...
Looks like they are only considering folks who have already had several works published.
Can't help feeling that you really can't in any meaningful way pitch one of these guys against the other. How do you say that one is better than the others??
No doubt about it. These guys are the best we have got. They are the touchstones.
Some good ones have been left out of the list, too. Like Toni Morrison.
So this list is not the definitive list, but it's one of the best I've seen in recent times.
No wonder the Kitaabkhana blogger called a Bobel, a Nobel meets Booker kinda stuff. Reassuring the reassured!
Bobel? Love it? And yes, I think that description - reassuring the reassured is quite apt. Come on lah, let's have something fresh served up.
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