Noviolet Bulawayo

Noviolet Bulawayo on Man Booker Prize shortlist

The Man Booker Prize is one of the biggest in the literary business with the winner going home with £50,000. That’s UK pounds. Launched in 1969, the prize aims to promote the finest in fiction by rewarding the best novel by a citizen of the United Kingdom, the Commonwealth, or the Republic of Ireland. Judges are chosen from a wide range of disciplines, including critics, writers, and academics, but also poets, politicians, and actors, all with a passion for quality fiction.

Some of the biggest names in English literature have won this prize and they include V. S. Naipaul for his short story In a Free State, Nadine Gordimer for her novel The Conservationist, Salman Rushdie for Midnight’s Children, and Ben Okri for The Famished Road. I never finished the last of these books even though I had bought it in the sale section at Kshs300 sadly. That man’s magic realism is more potent that those witch doctors from Pemba as far as I am concerned.

This year’s shortlisted writers for the prize have just been announced and include;

  • We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo (Chatto & Windus)
  • The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (Granta)
  • The Harvest by Jim Crace (Picador)
  • The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri (Bloomsbury)
  • A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki (Canongate)
  • The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín (Penguin)

All the shortlisted authors get a cheque for £2,500 and a designer-bound copy of their book and as mentioned the winner goes home with 50,000 UK pounds which isn’t too bad. The winner will be announced on 15 October.


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7 responses to “Noviolet Bulawayo on Man Booker Prize shortlist”

  1. […] (that’s a pen name mind you; her birth name is Elizabeth Zandile Tshele) has gone on to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and  at the Etisalat prize 2014  where I consider her a […]

  2. […] write We need new names that was nominated for everything that they could allow her to with a rare Man Booker Prize nomination and a win in the inaugural Etisalat Prize for African […]

  3. […] last African in the running for the prize was Noviolet Bulawayo and she made it all the to the shortlist before some cheeky bugger cheated us of literary glory. Lets hope no one dares pull such a stunt […]

  4. […] The Man Booker Prize is one of the richest in the world at US$50,000 with the winner being announced on 13th October. Some of the previous African winners of the Man Booker prize include Nadine Gordimer for The Conservationist in 1994, J.M. Koetzee twice for Life & Times of Michael K (1983) and Disgraced (1999) and Ben Okri for The Famished Road (1991). The most recent shortlist of an African at these awards was Noviolet Bulawayo for her book We Need New Names. […]

  5. […] list of authors and this letter is a complaint about that. As you are aware last year’s award had Zimbabwe’s Noviolet Bulawayo as a shortlisted author. You can imagine the prestige that this brought to people on the continent and the amount of […]

  6. […] Ben Okri (1991), and J. M. Coetzee (1999). Those who have been shortlisted are Marie NDiaye (2013), Noviolet Bulawayo (2013), and Chigozie Obioma […]

  7. […] Achebe (2007). Those who have been shortlisted are Chinua Achebe (1987), Marie NDiaye (2013), Noviolet Bulawayo (2013), and Chigozie Obioma […]

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