Maryse Conde and GauZ’ are on the shortlist for the International Booker Prize 2023 announced on Tuesday, April 18, 2023.
The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and Ireland. Some of the previous winners for the award, worth £50,000 split between author and translator, have been Chinua Achebe (in its older iteration) and David Diop (and its current version).
The 2023 jury is chaired by Leïla Slimani alongside academic Uilleam Blacker, author and lawyer Tan Twan Eng, The New Yorker staff writer Parul Sehgal, and Financial Times Literary Editor Frederick Studemann. They were looking for the best work of international fiction translated into English, selected from entries published in the UK or Ireland between May 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023.
They longlist for this year was announced on March 14 before the shortlist was revealed on Tuesday. Leïla Slimani, Chair of the International Booker Prize 2023 judges, siad: ‘I think I speak for the whole jury, when I say that I am proud of this list. I think it’s a very cool, very sexy list. We wanted each book to feel like an astonishment and to stand on its own. ‘These books are all bold, subversive, nicely perverse. There is something sneaky about a lot of them. I also feel that these are sensual books, where the question of the body is important. What is it like to have a body? How do you write about the experience of the body? These are not abstract or theoretical books, but on the contrary, very grounded books, about people, places, moments. All these authors also question the narrative and what it means to write a novel today.
The following writers of African descent are still in the running;
- Standing Heavy, GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne
Judges said, “A sharp and satirical take on the legacies of French colonial history and life in Paris today. Told in a fast-paced, and fluently translated, style of shifting perspectives, Standing Heavy carries us through the decades – from the youthful optimism of the decolonisation of the 1960s to the banal realities of daily shift work on the margins of contemporary consumer society – to deliver a fresh perspective on France that is critical, funny and human.”
- The Gospel According to the New World, Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox
Judges said, “Maryse Condé is one of the greatest Francophone authors and the great voice of the Caribbean. In this book she proves again what a gifted storyteller she is. The narration is lively and fluid, and we feel carried away by this story as we do by the fables of our childhood. She takes liberties, finding references in the Bible as well as in Caribbean myths. The book borrows from the tradition of magic realism and draws us into a world full of colour and life. This is a book that succeeds in mixing humour with poetry, and depth with lightness.”
The shortlist and winner will be announced on May 23.
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