Alain Mabanckou

Man Booker International Prize 2015 – Not Yet Ushindi

The Man Booker International Prize 2015 winner was announced at an award ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London last night. The name of the award winner is Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai.

The Man Booker Prize International 2015 is given once every two years to a living author for a body of work published either originally in English or available in translation in the English language. The man with easy to pronounce the name, for a Hungarian, goes home with £60,000 (Kshs90 million/NGN185/SAR11 million).

The main interest for this blogger where this story was concerned was that four African authors, Mozambican author Mia Couto, Republic of Congo Alain Mabanckou, Libya Ibrahim al-Koni, and South African Marlene van Niekerk were in the running. Unfortunately, it was Not Yet Ushindi (Swahili: Not Yet Winning), kind of like the famous Not Yet Uhuru (Not Yet Freedom) by Jaramogi Oginga Odinga, for the authors. Hopefully, the next bunch of authors will do better in 2017. Who would I put up for the award for that year’s awards from our continent? Here’s a good place to start.

Comments

2 responses to “Man Booker International Prize 2015 – Not Yet Ushindi”

  1. john avatar
    john

    Not yet ushindi James. It’s unfortunate they found themselves in a shortlist that included Laszlo Krasznahorkai. There was only one outcome for this one. Krasznahorkai is, if anything, running late for his Nobel prize. He’s is not just writing but creating with the violence of intellect, when you have Susan Sontag dedicating her time to do an essay on you, it means you are badass!

  2. […] in 2005, used to be a biennial prize for works from anywhere in the world published in English. The most recent winner of the award was Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai beating out contestants that included Mia Couto from […]

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