The Man Booker International Prize Longlist, 2019

Hello Gentle Reader

The Man Booker International Prize has released its longlist for two-thousand and nineteen. The longlist contains thirteen novelists and their respective work. The longlist spans both linguistic barriers and geographical boundaries, offering a plethora of perspective from all over the globe. An interesting note for this year’s longlist is the vast majority of the writers and books being considered for this year’s prize have all been promoted and published by independent publishers, which is a testament to what independent and small publishing houses bring to the table when publishing translated fiction into the English language, versus larger publishers.

The longlist for this year’s prize is as follows: [in no particular order]

Olga Tokarczuk – Poland – “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,”

Hwang Sok-yong – (South) Korea – “At Dusk,”

Can Xue – China – “Love in the New Millennium,”

Juan Gabriel Vásquez – Columbia – “The Shape of the Ruins,”

Sara Stridsberg – Sweden – “The Faculty of Dreams,”

Hubert Mingarelli – France – “Four Soldiers,”

Jokha Alharthi – Oman – “Celestial Bodies,”

Alia Trabucco Zerán – Chile – “The Remainder,”

Mazen Maarouf – Iceland/Palestine (language Arabic) – “Jokes For The Gunman,”

Marion Poschmann – Germany – “The Pine Islands,”

Tommy Wieringa – The Netherlands – “The Death Of Murat Idrissi,”

Samanta Schweblin – Argentina – “Mouthful of Birds,”

Annie Ernaux – France – “The Years,”

On the longlist are familiar names and new names as well. First up is Olga Tokarczuk, the recent Polish breakout novelist who won last year’s Man Booker International Prize with her phenomenal novel: “Flights.” She reappears on the longlist with her most recent translated publication: “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,” which is hailed as an inverted and twisted mystery novel with an environmental and ecological perspective. The novel also enjoys probing the mystical and slight magical realism with commentary on astrology. “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,” was slightly controversial in Tokarczuk’s homeland of Poland, as it was viewed by some as promoting environmental or ecoterrorism.

Following the previous winner and returnee, is the (South) Korean novelist Hwang Sok-yong. In recent year, there has been a steady and readily available translation(s) of Korean literature into English, which has boasted and advanced the careers of many, including: Bae Suah, and former Man Booker International Prize Winner, Han Kang. Hwang Sok-yong is not, however, a new name on the international literature stage. Hwang Sok-yong is one of the most well-known Korean writers working in the language today, whereby he reviews and analyses the socio-political climate of contemporary Korea from war to its contemporary divisions and divides, as well as rapid industrialization, urbanization, and strong economic impact in the Eastern world, rivaling neighbours and competitors: Japan and China. “At Dusk,” the novel longlisted for this year’s award takes stock and reviews (South) Koreas rapid industrialization and urbanization from the perspective of an architect and director, which discusses the poverty and uncertainty of the past with its war torn holes, to a glittery glass ridded future of skyscrapers stability and success.

This is the first time (to my knowledge at least) that Can Xue has been nominated for the Booker International Prize for Literature, but this does not diminish her claim as one of the experimental and innovative writers currently at work on the world stage. Can Xue and her works have been nominated, shortlisted, and won a plethora of literary prizes, including the Beast Translated Book Award four years ago. When discussing contemporary Chinese literature it is impossible to overlook the surreal, experimental, abstract and unconventional narratives of Can Xue, which are both praised and despised in China, with some critics stating she is certifiably insane. Her new novel “Love in the New Millennium,” traces the many facets of love—tragic, fleeting, transient, fulfilling, nebulous, and satirical—through lives of a group of woman, who exist during a backdrop of total absurdism surveillance, which normalized a society to accept the mass surveillance and societal paranoia without issue. This coupled with the usual blend of the outright surreal never fails to shock and empower readers to look beyond the tangible and probe the psychologically uncomfortable. As always Can Xue writers with cracking form, pushing the bounds of what can be accomplished in the limitations of literature, and then supersede from there.

Sara Stridsberg is not a new name to this blog or the literary award. She’s an acclaimed Swedish writer, who won the Nordic Councils Literature Prize in two-thousand and seven for Drömfakulteten, which has recently been translated into English as “The Faculty of Dreams.” The novel recounts with biographical acuity and fictional imagination the life of Valerie Solanas the radical feminist icon and author of the SCUM manifesto. The novel has been hailed as one of the best novels of the early two thousands in Sweden. Beyond her literary work, Sara Stridsberg was also once a member of the Swedish Academy, holding Chair No. 13, but later resigned after the scandal from last year. She was an adamant ally, friend and colleague of the former Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy, Sara Danius, who also resigned last month from her seat with the Swedish Academy. Her recent debuts and foothold in the English language is being welcomed. Her novel “The Gravity of Love,” also received the European Union Prize for Literature two-thousand and fifteen. Her inclusion on the Man Booker International Prize for Literature should be viewed with warm regards and applause.

The French language is represented by two authors who probe the archives and records of the past. First is Hubert Mingarelli with his restrained lyrical novel “Four Soldiers.” The novel in general terms recounts the solace found during wartime, as four Red Army soldiers sit alienated and abandoned in the far nether reaches of the Romanian countryside, camping and waiting for further orders, instruction or direction. The novel recounts with detail, their joys and their cynicism, their uncertainty and their current occupation which brings them ever closer to the shadow of annihilation. Their reprieve is welcomed and anxious, while their testimony is documented to provide trace and evidence of their existence, against the obliterating eraser of time and history. “Four Soldiers,” has been adamantly compared to Mingarelli’s earlier novel “A Meal in Winter,” which was nominated for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in two-thousand and fourteen. The hallmark of Hubert Mingarelli’s styles is highly praised: his restraint and acute sense of detail to offer inclination of larger dramatic events, as his lyricism to offer an engaging and otherwise poetic portrait of events imagined but more than probable. If Hubert Mingarelli probes the microdramatics of a macro historical event, Annie Ernaux instead takes the perspective of history as a form of introspective exploration; after all, Annie Ernaux has made a career of her autobiographical writings, whereby she recounts with great accuracy and detail the personal in reflection of the grand. She has been considered and called one of the most important writers of the French language, and her hybrid novel “The Years,” is being called her magnum opus, her own brief version of: “In Search of Lost Time.” The ‘novel,’ (?) is based around the autobiographical, and recounts Annie Ernaux’s life from her working-class upbringing and childhood, to her years as a teacher, but also as a mother and a wife, but also as a divorcee. The book, however, is praised for its ability to invert and contort the idea of autobiography, as the novel is presented and narrated by a choir proclaiming ‘We,’ before slipping into the third person. The personal and collective are recounted as reflections of each other and waltz around the room without complicating the independence and sovereignty of the two. History becomes tangible, concrete and lived when anchored with the personal narrative, perspective, and memories of one who experienced the march as it happened.

Marion Poschmann is a German poet and writer. Her novel “Die Kieferninseln,” or “The Pine Islands,” was shortlisted for the 2017 German Book Prize. The novel was praised by critics for its unique cross-cultural journey of a, German man who decides put distance between his wife and himself and go to Japan, a place that neither interests him or sparks any joy. Yet while in Japan he traces the footsteps of the great Japanese poet Basho, and makes the pilgrimage to see the moon above the pine islands, while accompanied by a student who is guided by a travelogue devoted to suicide. Its been praised as mordantly humorous and deeply philosophical, as the questions of western thought are juxtaposed by eastern—and more specifically—Shinto philosophy and religious concepts.

Samanta Schweblin is also a returning name to the Man Booker International Prize. The Argentinians first novel: “Fever Dream,” was nominated in two-thousand and seventeen, and was included on the two-thousand and eighteen, Best Translated Book Award longlist. Now she returns with her short story collection “Mouthful of Birds.” The collection is being praised as dreamy, surreal, and unsettling. In sparse and direct prose Samanta Schweblin quickly refracts reality as a tangible and concrete subject, while blending and transcending generic and genre narratives to create a kaleidoscope to present a unique perspective of the world and the individuals who inhabit and experience it.

Juan Gabriel Vásquez, hails from Columbia, a country riddled with strife and civil war, which has just recently reached a shifting compromise of uncertainty that, maintains a loose ceasefire. His novel “The Shape of Ruins,” provides an almost conspiracy aesthetic accountancy of two political assassinations of Columbia’s past, which ripple through time in a informal flux providing a bedeviled portrait of the Columbia that would be. Juan Gabriel Vásquez is a prominent star in Columbia’s literary culture. His novel “The Sound of Things Falling,” won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and was immediately proclaimed as a masterpiece hailing from the Southern Continent of the Post-Boom era.

Alia Trabucco Zerán is the final author coming from South America, with her novel “The Remainder.” Zerán’s debut novel is riddled with history, tragedy and pain which echoes through generations. The story is riddled with the past and the sadness of Chile’s complicated history. This same history equally turns its attention to the personal and the private, which readily ripples forth and throughout. With mordant sense of humour, and a lightness of touch Alia Trabucco Zerán is able to depict the tragedy of history and its ramifications and consequences on future generations. It has been described as a masterful debut.

In his novel, “The Death Of Murat Idrissi,” Tommy Wieringa discusses the complicated world of immigration and cultural assimilation, while probing the loss of identity that can brought on by the lack of unified identity associated with geographical positioning. Yet the novel explores with the darker world of culture and humanity, as two women set forth to their parents homeland only to find themselves engulfed in a exploitive world of human trafficking, and the advantageous opportunism that exists in the power struggle for an individual seeking a better life elsewhere, and those who control the shady gets for those dreams. It’s a novel which carries a heavy social connotations and commentary, and could not be considered more relevant in today’s world than ever before.

The longlist wraps up with two Arabic language writers: Mazen Maarouf who encompasses the dual identity of Palestine and Iceland, and the Oman writer, Jokha Alharthi. Jokha Alharthi’s novel “Celestial Bodies,” describes the national via the process of the private and personal. The novel recounts the lives of three sisters and their family, as they witness the coming of age and development of Oman as a nation in its own right from its own traditions and cultural lineages, into a unique country after independence from colonial rule, all through the microscope lens of ones families love, losses, and triumphs. “Jokes For The Gunman,” a collection of short stories by Mazen Maarouf moves in a completely different direction. The stories have been described, as unsettling, bizarre, surreal, and uncanny. They’re dreamlike in their strange maneuverings, as they recount the anonymous lives, trivialities, and bizarre interactions of people in unknown and unnamed cities, which could be seen or depicted as anywhere. The stories take influence from the early Latin American Boom writers, as they revolted against the absurd violence and strangeness of their own lands, as Mazen Maarouf does much the same, as he recounts and depicts the arbitrary violence with grand absurdity, and with Beckettian or Kafkaesque humour, exploits the absurdity in the illogical, whereby the menace creates a mordant sense of humour in which one can only laugh.

Such is the longlist for this year’s Man Booker International Prize. It is comprised of varying narratives, varying styles, and varying languages and perspectives. It blends both the well-known with the up and coming. New writers are expertly being included along with established winners and former nominated writers. The world of translated literature appears to always be on full display, with this modest depiction to show what treats exist out there, waiting to be devoured with the greatest enthusiasm. There are sadly, obvious omissions from the longlist, including Ersi Sotiropoulos with her novel “What’s Left of the Night,” which I look forward to purchasing along with other books in the coming week(s). The longlist above has also given me plenty of writers to research, review and contemplate on, while I begin to put together a list of books to binge on, before the funds run up once again.

 Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary