Booker Prize Shortlist announced
Courtesy of Neha, I have been alerted to the announcement of Booker's shortlist this year. What an interesting assortment, but more on that in a minute.
They have changed their criteria a little. It used to be only for a single novel published in English by a citizen of the British Commonwealth. Now every other year they will give the award to any author who has written in English or is widely translated to English and whose body of work yadda yadda significant contributions yadda yadda. Sounds like the Nobel prize for mostly white or at least Europeans only or something like that. So the list this year:
Margaret Atwood (Canada)
Saul Bellow (Canada)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)
Gunter Grass (Germany)
Ismail Kadare (Albania)
Milan Kundera (Czech Republic)
Stanislaw Lem (Poland)
Doris Lessing (UK)
Ian McEwan (UK)
Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
Tomas Eloy Martinez (Argentina)
Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)
Cynthia Ozick (US)
Philip Roth (US)
Muriel Spark (UK)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
John Updike (US)
Abraham B Yehoshua (Israel)
Of this list, Grass, Oe, Bellow, Marquez, Mahfouz have already won the Nobel Prize for the same thing already. It would be like winning a Daytime Emmy after winning an Oscar. Yeah, I would like to thank the readers of Soap Opera Digest.... Further, of those on this list that would have been eligible in previous years for the regular Booker Prize, none of Spark, Bellow, and Lessing have ever had a single book noted as the one best novel. Lessing was last on the Short List in '85, Spark in '81, and Bellow never. Notable absences are some of Booker's darlings, like Byatt, Fitzgerald, Rushdie, and Ishiguro.
I really do prefer the single book award. One of the reasons is for me to be in a position to complain about not knowing what the heck they are singling out (have you read any Anita Brookner? SNOOOORE) or being excited about my faith being restored in English literature (Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy). Man, would either scenario give me so much blog-fodder hehe.
You might find this interesting, too. The MAN Booker is really trying to prove that it is international, so they made the announcement of the shortlist from Georgetown University. Also, one of the judges is Azar Nafisi.
I will send a crisp $5 bill to anyone that posts in the comments a Brittania-based blog that laments the new direction of the Booker. Transplants to the U.S. or Canada okay, but no American Anglo-philes.
They have changed their criteria a little. It used to be only for a single novel published in English by a citizen of the British Commonwealth. Now every other year they will give the award to any author who has written in English or is widely translated to English and whose body of work yadda yadda significant contributions yadda yadda. Sounds like the Nobel prize for mostly white or at least Europeans only or something like that. So the list this year:
Margaret Atwood (Canada)
Saul Bellow (Canada)
Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)
Gunter Grass (Germany)
Ismail Kadare (Albania)
Milan Kundera (Czech Republic)
Stanislaw Lem (Poland)
Doris Lessing (UK)
Ian McEwan (UK)
Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt)
Tomas Eloy Martinez (Argentina)
Kenzaburo Oe (Japan)
Cynthia Ozick (US)
Philip Roth (US)
Muriel Spark (UK)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
John Updike (US)
Abraham B Yehoshua (Israel)
Of this list, Grass, Oe, Bellow, Marquez, Mahfouz have already won the Nobel Prize for the same thing already. It would be like winning a Daytime Emmy after winning an Oscar. Yeah, I would like to thank the readers of Soap Opera Digest.... Further, of those on this list that would have been eligible in previous years for the regular Booker Prize, none of Spark, Bellow, and Lessing have ever had a single book noted as the one best novel. Lessing was last on the Short List in '85, Spark in '81, and Bellow never. Notable absences are some of Booker's darlings, like Byatt, Fitzgerald, Rushdie, and Ishiguro.
I really do prefer the single book award. One of the reasons is for me to be in a position to complain about not knowing what the heck they are singling out (have you read any Anita Brookner? SNOOOORE) or being excited about my faith being restored in English literature (Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy). Man, would either scenario give me so much blog-fodder hehe.
You might find this interesting, too. The MAN Booker is really trying to prove that it is international, so they made the announcement of the shortlist from Georgetown University. Also, one of the judges is Azar Nafisi.
I will send a crisp $5 bill to anyone that posts in the comments a Brittania-based blog that laments the new direction of the Booker. Transplants to the U.S. or Canada okay, but no American Anglo-philes.
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