Valeria Luiselli Wins Rathbones Folio Prize

Hello Gentle Reader

During the past week, one can be forgiven for not hearing or knowing the news that Valeria Luiselli had won the Rathbones Folio Prize. In the influx of media surrounding the pandemic and repeated requests for people to observe and respect calls for social distancing (now being refered to as: physical distancing), one may have missed the news Monday that Valeria Luiselli won this year’s Rathbones Folio Prize, for her novel: “Lost Children Archive.” In winning the Folio Prize, Luiselli becomes the first woman and the first Mexican author to receive the award (it should be noted “Lost Children Archive is Valeria Luiselli’s first novel written in English). Considering the female dominated shortlist, the probability of seeing a woman writer taking the prize for the first time was inevitable. Valeria Luiselli winning the award, however, was a surprise. The shortlist was dominated by powerful testimonials, essays, poetry and prose.

The shortlist had numerous interesting writers in its midst. The two most prominent being: the poet, Fiona Benson with her collection: “Vertigo & Ghost,” and: Sinead Gleeson with her debut essay collection, “Constellations.” Since her debut as a poet, Fiona Benson has carved herself a quiet but simmering reputation as a serious and somber poetic voice in contemporary English literature. Her poetry is raw and unapologetic as it dredges through the trenches of the female experience, violence, subjugation, and trauma. Her poetic language is descriptive, explosive, and unflinching in otherwise visceral depictions of feminine experiences. “Vertigo & Ghost,” is of no exception. Through the remodeling of mythology, Fiona Benson wrote about rape, before writing about childhood, and motherhood, which created an otherwise cycle like narrative of the feminine experience between the horrors of the external thrust upon them, and the beauty of choice and what cane spring from that wellspring of womb of life, followed by the eternity of nurturing and rearing thereafter.

Sinead Gleeson on the other hand renews the essay; proving that the form is not just academic, dusty or dry, but a teeming form full of life, and often grappling with the immediate and apparent reality, with more candor then any novel, short story, or poem would dare address. In her debut essay collection “Constellations,” Sinead Gleeson crawls beneath the skin, and gets straight to heart of the matter. The heart in this case and the matter are personal in nature: Sinead Gleeson herself. The subtext of “Constellations,” is: “Reflections of Life,” and Sinead Gleeson has lived a life marred by illness and physical torment, which she aptly documents and records in her essays. Gleeson shies away from autobiography, which in such matters would be too linear. The essay on the other hand can be more fluid, and no punctuated on the demands of time. In this Gleeson is able to be as fragmentary as necessary, and as epiphanic as she pleases, all the while opting for formal experimentation as she desires.

Despite my desire to see either Fiona Benson receive the award or Sinead Gleeson, it went to Valeria Luiselli, who over the past few years has made a remarkable name for herself as a rising ‘global writer,’ who can move between languages and cultures with ease, and readily shown in her novel “Lost Children Archive,” though written in English, maintains a preoccupation with the Mexican plight and American politics, in a growing xenophobic and disenfranchised world.

Congratulations of course are in order to Valeria Luiselli! Though the times could not be more unfortunate for such events, as all social gatherings, convocations, and events are postponed until further notice.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

The People in the Windows

Hello Gentle Reader

Over the past few weeks and months, statements have been circulating all over the world: the new reality; self-isolation; social distancing; proper social engineering; exonerating circumstances; flattening the curve; economic collapse; quarantine; and of course pandemic. These words are followed up by others: solitude; confinement; loneliness; uncertainty; unemployment; and boredom. Questions have been raised of what this ‘new reality,’ is and how it has replaced the old one. As it stands, the new reality is one that exists in a state of fluctuations. Every passing day new statistics are released causing greater concern, requiring further recommendations. Politicians take to their podiums with healthcare professionals, and provide routine updates, policy initiatives, and government action. Suddenly streets are barren; grocery stores feel filthy; businesses are closed; panic is in the air; and we’ve become the people in the windows. Exhibits within our homes. Curated in museums of dust. Preserved in panes. Perceived through glass. The days punctuated with unease; while passing by, observed through window panes. Beyond the glass, the world is stark. The routine commute, orchestrated within the former hustle and bustle is now at void. A few cars still drive off to destinations unknown. They are singular and sporadic, never plural or in a pack. They splinter off and speed away, leaving behind the stationary vehicles; resigned to their garages, car ports, or the allocated street parking. Their engines cool, their seats uninhabited, their drivers tucked up in bed, riddled with spasm dreams of what the future holds. Their waking day clouded with worries.

The quarantined world may as well be an absurd apocalyptic vision beckoned forth from the mind of Beckett. Nothing has changed, yet everything is different. The atmosphere tense. The streets empty as the evenings grow long. Street lights illuminate abandoned roadways. Doors locked. Schools empty. Public buildings vacated; public transit uninhabited. Stray souls walk or jog or run down sidewalks—are they escaping or retreating home? The nights are forlorn and quiet. The nightlife all but abandoned. After all: nightclubs, bars, pubs, casinos are all shut up. Their revelry on hold; their merriment muted.  Every house glows as isolative lighthouses. Each lit up window—curtains closed or exposed—a reminder we’re out there; though hidden behind walls, and confined by doors.

The abandonment. The isolation. The solitude. The otherwise macro exemplary shut-in loneliness bring to mind the desolate, solemn, and hollow worlds of the American artist Edward Hopper, and the French artist Claude Lazar. Of course in recent days, Edward Hopper and his paintings have become the posters for the life in self-isolation and quarantine, thanks to social media. Hoppers paintings detailing the derelict and sparse urban spaces of interwar and postwar America have been utilized across social media to provide the artistic and realistic depiction of what quarantine culture looks like. These realistic but otherwise inclined phantasmagoric paintings provide a disturbing relevance of the isolation and confinement, now expected of each individual in today’s infectious world. Edward Hoppers paintings may have been painted in the realist tradition; though they do go beyond capturing still life as its observed. Instead, Hoppers paintings provide a poignant psychological perspective of the collective consciousness—or rather Hoppers take on the collective consciousness: one that is disparate, subtlety surreal, aching in the emotional nakedness, and all but alone.

Morning Sun [1951] by Hopper has been widely dispersed through social media channels. The painting depicts Hoppers wife Jo, sitting on a bed in a bare room, gazing out the window into the morning light, out onto the city that exists just beyond the corners of the window.  She [Jo] is poised, with only her body language betraying the sensation of alienation and loneliness. She sits knees to chest. Her arms and hands tenderly embrace the legs and knees, while remaining hanky and loose, to the point that if a shiver or a quiver of the soul rippled beneath the skin, the entire posture would collapse. The room is starch and barren. The bed is covered in wrinkled white sheets, where she sits in her blushing nightgown. The walls barren and grey, light up with the golden morning sun. All the while the subject gazes off into an unknown distance. In the peripheral of the window a cityscape is insinuated to exist through the seen world consisting of a wall of red buildings, black windows, and up above the morning sky transitioning from the night. Still what does the subject see? One can only imagine. Does she gaze out to an empty world; or does she look out on to a world waking up? Regardless of what unfolds and is beholden beyond those four corners of the window, the subjects gaze is muted in its longing. She is resigned to her life, as inconsequential as it is; as unexceptional as it is; as small and insignificant; overshadowed by the metropolis and the city, and lost in the waves of people set to spill forth in the day. Each one equally as displaced, lost and alienated as the next; but in the briefest of moments, through the action of movement, through the distraction of work or purpose or life, they are no longer concerned with the alienation or the insignificance of being or self.

Now that the daily grind has halted. Every moment has become a private moment, and in these long stretches of moments, we are lost in reverie. As the news and other media outlets continue to divulge greater statistics, more quantities of data, and numeric values that explode day by day, all of us are left to reflect on how small we are, and how little we make up the world. Now in these closeted and claustrophobic spaces existential crisis breed. Those private dramas which carry the greatest and potent pain. Nothing is more accurate in its delivery and sting as self-criticism. It never misses the mark. After the initial contact the criticism and self-doubt spreads with viral speed. The strains of existence and other philosophical conundrums will of course become addendums to the other challenges of this increasingly ambiguous world. Now locked away, shielded behind walls, confined in our homes do we realize just how much of an island we are. Shipwrecked and stranded we maintain our distance from each other. At night our lights call out. Our shadows stamps of proof that we persist and exist. Come the morning we continue in the same fashion as the day before. The days but a continual thread of uncertainty coupled with existential malaise. We’ll sit like the woman in Automat [1927] or the man with his back turned in Nighthawks [1942], the morning coffee aromatically steaming beneath our faces. Distant eyes glazed over, lost in thought or elsewhere. Alienation now acutely atomized. These painted portraits of loneliness, once again reminds us that urban life—or life in general—is not immune to social isolation that is the world for now; for it always has been part of the world. Cities despite their grandness, their beauty, their continuous movement, can also breed the sense that in each of us in our own way are but mere expats in a world forsaken, unachievable, and locked. Even now, after years of departing the emptiness of small town rural life, with the expansive nothingness, interspersed with abandoned aged weather battered barns, or rural farm houses now derelict and dilapidated; or the solitary prairie trees growing singular in their defiant resolve.  The kind of place so extensively expansive, it will consume you. Forget the void being a black hole, or a maw of cosmic nothingness, so alien and foreign its goal simple: consume; it is far more earthly and ephemeral still. It can be the endless prairies, where each step is much the same as the last, where each golden or green field but a replica of the one already past. There under the crushing weight of living skies, and days passing by, is one consumed, lost, and forgotten. The same can be stated with mountains pressing tight, or the exploration of their dark cavernous bowls, echoing screams the last remnant of one’s existence; or the ocean and sea, disrupted one minuet all the while in the next the waves subside, the ripples lessen, and that’s it. The urban world is no different. Behind the high-rises, the concrete, the steel, and the glass; in the herds of suits and ties; heels and blouses; briefcases and umbrellas, we are aptly separate, mere satellites orbiting a familiar but distant sun, our paths crisscrossing intermittently. No time is better now than ever to come to terms with these exonerating circumstances about the human desire for social interaction action and connection. Though introverts may enjoy their own company; this new landscape is certainly an apocalyptic shock to the system. The pains of further uncertainty: health, finances, economic, and occupation related only feed the disorienting whirlwind of the times.

Despite the dread there is comfort in this. We are lonely islands, shipwrecked and exiled. Just like Napoleon exiled to Elba, we plan our return and conquest; though if we are not careful, we will end up on Saint Helena, with further amendments enacted for our health and safety; but also for the community’s wellbeing and preservation. The comfort in all of this is that each of us despite circumstances are in the same situation. We each greet the day with the same discomfort, the same uncertainty. We are assaulted by the same dreadful news. We are buried under the continual rise of statistical analysis. Through it all we sift through the vastness to find the shard of comfort; which in the meantime is our own fortunate health. For now we’ve become the subjects of Edward Hopper paintings. The landscape etched with his same foreboding expanse. The interior and the exterior reminiscent of Claude Lazar’s work as well. Powerfully depicted is the displaced, disposed, and yet completely normal landscapes: cityscapes, rooms, kitchens, and other mundane spaces all deprived of human presence. Yet daily life is capsulated in the timelessness of absence. Everything is in its place, patiently waiting for its utilization; indifferent at the lack of contact; while yet everything is amiss. Such is the world today. The absence is made more eerie by the mundanity of its acceptance. In time we expect it all to come to life once again; or be eroded away by neglect and time. Without the presence of human custodian and maintenance, everything is doomed to return to its more primordial states. In the interim between contrary possibilities, we are the people in the windows forlorn and contemplating. 

For now Gentle Reader, stay safe, spacious and healthy.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Eduard Limonov Dies Aged 77

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The Russian writer, dissident and political activist, Eduard Limonov, was known for his otherwise coloruful and controversial narratives; as well as his equally anarchic political inclinations. Limonov was often seen as a punk like figure among the Russian (then Soviet) dissident writers. Rather than portraying himself as an intellectual refugee, seeking freedom of thought, expression, and press, Eduard Limonov sought to scandalize all with his transgressive accounts. His debut novel “It’s Me, Eddie,” brought him immediate attention, as the novel detailed pornographic and graphic sexual scenes, displaying Limonov’s particular interest in punk subculture. The Soviet Union decried it as filth, while others viewed with particular interest—of course, only after it became a success in France. “It’s, Me Eddie,” is was not a typical dissident writer’s book of the time. It did not carry the overtones of subtle or hidden criticism against the Soviet Union; rather the novel was conceived and delivered as a harsh reality of dissident life. Eduard Limonov’s work maintained this same style moving forward: memoir-cum-fiction, each one yet another depraved exploration of the carnal flesh, and the degradation of life. Each publication of his work cemented Eduard Limonov as a controversial and potent nuisance on the literary scene. The gulag monk, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn described Limonov as a “little insect who writes pornography,”—the Russian reading public, were equally as shocked and disturbed by his impolite and explicit discourse into the sexual (homosexual and otherwise), and his explicit defense of otherwise questionable politics. His literary output was equally as matched by his public persona. Eduard Limonov was unapologetic in his perspectives, opinions, and literary depravity; shocking, disturbing, and distinctly all his own, Eduard Limonov proved himself to being the Russian Punk Laureate of Literature, refusing to being a dissident in clear and simple terms; refusing to being literary by the standards outlined; refusing to be an intellectual for political positions. Eduard Limonov was ever contrary, perplexing, and controversial; his death will have its sighs of relief; while also pounding fists in celebrating his life, and the continual reading of his work.

Rest in Peace, Eduard Limonov.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Yang Mu Dies Aged 79

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Yang Mu was one of the most important Taiwanese writers of the late Twentieth Century and early Twenty-First Century, becoming one of the most important and revolutionary voices in modern Chinese language literature. Yang Mu’s extensive knowledge and reading into classical Chinese literature and poetic forms provided him a solid grasp of the beautiful intricacies of the language, its rich literary history, and its traditions through the ages. Yet it was Yang Mu’s own innovation in form and style, which gathered him the greatest attention as a literary heavy weight. At university years, Yang Mu discovered the romantic English poets: William Wordsworth, John Keats, Lord Byron, and Percy Byshee Shelly. Academically, Yang Mu studied in Taiwan, and pursued graduate studies in the United States of America. His stay in the United States changed Yang Mu’s poetic vision as a poet, moving him away from his early romanticism and sentimental poetry, and instead taking a more serious concern with social realities, politics, and the human condition. His later poetry was more reserved, calm, and philosophical profound, continuing to give praise to ancient Chinese literary traditions, while also becoming an innovative influence on contemporary trends, innovations, and explorations of literary forms in contemporary Chinese language poetry and literature. As a poet, Yang Mu disregarded poetic pyrotechnics and pretentious pontificating forms, in favour of grace, humanism, and contemplation. Yang Mu’s work could have been described as chimeric in form, at once acknowledging the lengthy literary history of Chinese literature, while on the other hand taking influence from western poetic traditions. He was promoted by the later Swedish Academy member and renowned Sinologist Goran Malmquist as being one the greatest poets of the Chinese literary form (Malmquist happened to be his translator as well); it was often rumored that Malmquist often brought Yang Mu’s name up in Swedish Academy deliberations as a potential Nobel Laureate in Literature. Sadly, however, Yang Mu died last Friday after being admitted to the hospital, suffering from respiratory and cardiovascular difficulties. He slipped into a coma after being admitted, and did not awaken from it, and died peacefully at the age of 79.

Yang Mu was a first degree poet, a profound humanist thinker, never wavering from praising the human soul for its resilience. Mu’s poetic forms acknowledged and gave homage to the historical beauty of Chinese literature, while also opening it up to Western forms, ideas, themes, and styles, while never losing its sense of self, identity, or cultural inclinations. His death is a sad shock to the poetry world, and the literary community. Yang Mu was perhaps one of the most important, influential, and non-political poet of Chinese language literature.

Rest in Peace, Yang Mu.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

Ernesto Cardenal Dies Aged 94

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Ernesto Cardenal was one of the most socially and politically conscious poets of Nicaragua and the Spanish language. Cardenal’s political perspective was revolutionary, noted for their open Marxist leanings. Ernesto Cardenal also had strong religious connections, becoming a priest and a government minister in his life time; which ultimately gathered the late poet a scolding lecture from the late Pope John Paull II, on a visit to Nicaragua. It was then that Pope John Paul II told Ernesto Cardenal to get his affairs in order spiritually and politically, but to Cardenal the two were interchangeable, and utilized equally in his poems to promote social justice within Nicaragua. For many Nicaraguans Ernesto Cardenal was a literary master, and the absolute moral authority in a country which went from one political regime of corruption to another. Cardenal utilized both gospel teachings and Marxist political philosophies to encourage social and moral reforms throughout the country, and poetry was the form in which he utilized to express these thoughts. Ernesto Cardenal was endeared to the vast readership of the country. As a poet, Cardenal was not interested in being an ivory tower poet; instead he worked diligently and hard to teach his countrymen to read and writer, and appreciate the written word, the spiritual teachings, and political philosophies of governance. Ernesto Cardenal’s poetry was deeply rooted as a form of public service, whereby a poem should not be self-indulgent, hermetic, or explicitly introverted; rather poetry should be exact, an example of public language, for public consumption. It should be read, felt, and recited by the public without hesitation or confusion; it was also to be utilized as a movement or form to create lasting political change; an ideal shared with fellow poets of region: Nobel Laureate Pabulo Neruda and Rubén Darío. Ernesto Cardenal’s poetry left no subject untouched; in his later years, Cardenal included science as a subject in his poetry, penning and publishing a five hundred page epic poem called “Cosmic Canticle,” influenced by the theories produced by physicists Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking. When asked about the otherwise apparent divide between science and religion, Cardenal remarked that science explains the workings of the universe; a universe crafted and created by God; as far as Ernesto Cardenal was concerned, science merely remarked on the beauty of God’s creation, in the form stars, space, time, and black holes. The wonders of the heaven were but an ocean of potential admiration, and prayer to God. Throughout political crisis, spiritual scolding’s, Ernesto Cardenal was idealistic and optimistic; his poetry a reflection of the potential for human beings to live in peace with themselves, each other, and in the presence of God. There is no denying that Ernesto Cardenal was a literary giant, who was loved and appreciated by those who had read him, were inspired by him, and sought to do better by him.

Rest in Peace Ernesto Cardenal.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

The Man Booker International Prize Longlist, 2020

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The Man Booker International Prize has released its longlist for the new decade of two-thousand and twenty. The longlist provides thirteen titles across the globe, spanning multiple different languages, cultures, and experiences. Once again, this year’s longlist is dominated by independent and smaller publishing houses. It’s becoming a more proven fact that the independent and small publishers are the ones championing translated literature, and providing the opportunity for readers to see unique literary voices beyond their own language. Throughout its new inception (post-2016) the Man Booker International Prize has come into own as a literary award, with a genuine interest in promoting and celebrating translated literature into English. Previous winners of the Man Booker International Prize Longlist include: recent Nobel Laureate, Olga Tokarczuk; the Hungarian postmodern master of the apocalypse, László Krasznahorkai; and the penetrating and graceful psychological novelist Han Kang.

The following is this year’s longlist for the Man Booker International Prize: [in no particular order]:

Yoko Ogawa – Japan – “The Memory Police,”

Willem Anker – South Africa [Afrikaans] – “Red Dog,”

Emmanuelle Pagano – France – “Faces on the Tip of My Tongue,”

Shokoofeh Azar – Iran – “The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree,”

Gabriela Cabezón Cámara – Argentina – “The Adventures of China Iron,”

Jon Fosse – Norway – “The Other Name: Septology I-II,”

Fernanda Melchor – Mexico – “Hurricane Season,”

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld – The Netherlands – “The Discomfort of Evening,”

Daniel Kehlmann – Germany/Austria – “Tyll,”

Enrique Vila-Matas – Spain – “Mac and His Problem,”

Michel Houellebecq – France – “Serotonin,”

Samanta Schweblin – Argentina – “Little Eyes,”

Nino Haratischwili – Georgia – “The Eighth Life,”

The longlist contains both established and new writers, once again proving that the Booker International Prize values both sets of writers; whereas at times the Booker Prize fixates on more established writers, rather than providing the necessary attention to more recent writers. In this, the Booker Prize often comes across a prize stalled and idling, with the judges sitting and huffing on the recycled exhaust pumped in. Often with the Booker Prize, he same candidates (if they have published a recent novel) are conventionally guaranteed a position on the Booker Prize Longlist; often at the cost at more interesting, engaging, and exciting voices in contemporary English language literature. This makes the Booker International Prize a great foil to the original. Of these thirteen writers longlist there are eight languages represented via the novels: Japanese, French, Afrikaans, Farsi, German, Dutch, Norwegian, and Spanish.

Willem Anker’s novel “Red Dog,” is a historical epic, providing historical details and fictionalized account of the legendary Coenraad de Buys, and through this novel William Anker provides an account of the bloody birth of South Africa as a colony. Coenraad de Buys becomes a legendary and unofficial representative of South Africa’s colonial roots and identity. The bastardization of the land, the people more mongrel then the purebred’s of home; the need for survival in the brutality. The entire novel is made up for the contradictions of the time, create a macro tapestry in the image of one individual: Coenraad de Buys, who is both hero and rebel. It’s a remarkable novel, who fixates on a larger than life historical figure, which becomes a pillar of the later national identity, its culture, language, and values. Since the longlist has been announced, however, Willem Anker has been accused of plagiarism with regards to passages of his novel “Red Dog,” and serendipitously similar passages appearing from Cormac McCarthy’s novel “Blood Meridian.” The notion of plagiarism has become a slippery slope to discuss in the context of creative writing. Some view the scavenging use of secondhand prose, as a postmodern form of intertextuality. Either way, the criticism has created a significant amount of controversy concerning the legitimacy of Willem Anker’s novels originality, and the suitability of his nomination for the Booker International Prize.

Politics and literature are not always, easily separated, as is the case with Shokoofeh Azar, an Iranian writer, who immigrated to Australia as a refugee, politics can be a complex situation. The translator for her novel “The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree,” has remained anonymous for political concerns. Azar’s novel is narrated by the ghost of a thirteen year old girl, whose family is displaced from their home in Tehran to a small village, their intention is to retain and maintain their intellectual freedoms; but in post-revolutionary Iran normalcy is no longer an option, and the family is swept up in the chaos. The novel traces the political macro in the personal trauma. The novel has been described as a poetic masterpiece, about the ability of storytelling to bring meaning to the otherwise senseless and madness of a post-revolutionary world.

Argentina is becoming a more prominent literary exporter. On the Booker International Prize alone there are two Argentinean writers have been longlisted. Over the past few years in numerous translated awards, Argentine writers are becoming an increasingly common site. This is Samanta Schweblin’s third time being nominated for the Booker International Prize. Previously, Schweblin was on the shortlist in two-thousand and seventeen with her novel “Fever Dream,” and last year she was nominated for her short story collection “Mouthful of Birds.” Samanta Schweblin has proven herself to being on the most promising writers heralding from Argentina with a global approach to her writing. “Little Eyes,” is a novel about the global interconnectedness of the world, and the dangers this involves. The novel is surreal, but is all but grounded in contemporary reality and future possibilities. “Little Eyes,” is a cautionary, surreal, and otherwise inclining dystopian story from one of the most established and successful writers from Argentina. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara and her novel “The Adventures of China Iron,” is one of the novels championed and published by a small independent publisher. Gabriela Cabezón Cámara’s novel is a strange historical and literary revision of “The Gaucho Martin Fierro.” It’s a postcolonial, queer, surreal, comic romp of a novel, and is praised for these traits; though I remain hesitant.

France also has two writers listed on the longlist. First and foremost the internationally renowned and controversial writer: Michel Houellebecq, and his critically acclaimed novel “Serotonin.” The novel is typical of Houellebecq, barely veiled nihilism encompassing an otherwise depressing narrative of a disenfranchised and depressed agricultural scientist who seeks to restart his life, but finds himself in a changing bleak situation—both social and economic situation with disenfranchised farmers, which leads to a riot. The novel is riddled with Houellebecq’s otherwise curt perspective on society, people and perspective. It takes topical social and thematic concerns facing French society and begins to ponder the individuals destiny, freedom, and meaning within an increasingly globalized, but alienating world. Critics found Houellebecq novel poignantly prophetic, as the novel depicted the disruption and barricades of roadways and logistic hubs by farmers; which was later performed by the Yellow Vest Movement. In comparison to Michel Houellebecq; Emmanuelle Pagano is less well known to English readers. Pagano has only one other book translated and published in English: “Trysting,” was written in a collection of vignettes, aphorisms, scenes, and snapshot observations about love in its many forms, without prejudice to gender or sexuality, circumstance, perception, or emotional experience. “Faces on the Tip of My Tongue,” utilizes the same fragmentary and multifaceted form to discuss the peripheral, forgotten, and at times disturbed individuals of rural France. The stories, monologues, and vignette’s provide a brutal and honest depiction of their lives, their surroundings, and their limited acknowledgement they receive from the outside world. “Faces on the Tip of My Tongue,” has been praised as a powerful literary book, which may be overlooked as lightweight or limited in capacity; but nothing could be farther from the truth. Much like “Serotonin,” Emmanuelle Pagano provides a critique of the globalized world from the perspective of the forgotten and alienated rural community.

Another giant of global literature on the Booker International Prize Longlist is Jon Fosse. When it comes to remarks on Fosse’s work, critics mention his theatrical work first and foremost. Fosse is one of the most produced and performed living playwright in the world. His dramatic texts have been compared to the solemn gravitas of Henrik Ibsen; while also employing the minimalist repetitive text of Samuel Beckett. Fosse’s prose is noted for its rhythmic flow, described by Fosse as a combination of flotsam and jetsam. His minimalist repetitive prose is noted for following the same wave like procession of the sea.  “The Other Name: Septology I-II,” concerns the doppelganger entities named Asle (a common name in Fosse’s work). The two Asle’s rotate and orbit; touch and influence each other—they’re but the two halves of the same individual, grappling with the existential struggles of life and death; meaning and meaningless; love, hope, faith and despair. The two have taken different approaches to how they handle their existential doubts and crisis’s. In controlled, reserved, minimalist prose, Jon Fosse traces these two lives in their familiarity, alienation, and otherwise quiet if albeit solitary and strange lives. Jon Fosse’s ‘slow prose,’ is not described as every reader’s preference. Much like his plays, Fosse’s prose can come across as strange, dreamlike and ethereal as it depicts the acquiescence of life. Fosse’s prose may not be difficult or explosively experimental; it’s simple, minimal, and measured in its rhythmic progress. These same qualities often irritate readers, who find a lack of progression and action a lack of narrative; but the beauty of Fosse’s prose is the reader’s experience of slipping into the pulsating melody of his prose.

Yoko Ogawa has had an otherwise complicated relationship with the English language; as initial attempts of her translations into the English language, were publishers trying to capitalize on the then Haruki Murakami Wave. The waters were initially tested with some of her stories published in The New Yorker. The reception was obviously positive, as a collection of her three novellas’ came out in the late two-thousands, followed by her immensely successful “The Housekeeper and the Professor.” Yet, from there Ogawa proved herself to not being a sentimental writer, who riddled her work with kitschy and melodramatic plots. Off of the pink cherry blossom warmth of “The Housekeeper and the Professor,” came the dark and grotesque works, which were insinuated in her early collection of novellas (“The Diving Pool,”) came the sexually twisted novel “Hotel Iris,” and the macabre and haunting short story collection “Revenge.” Six years later, Yoko Ogawa’s novel “The Memory Police,” is translated and published. The reception has been ecstatic and positive. The novel itself is a beautiful testament on the notion of memory, with dystopian elements, which slowly subside into a more existential testament on the notion of memory, identity, and the concept of being. Unfortunately the translation of the title mistakenly does not hint at the beautiful nuances of the novels true potential. The title itself has no poeticism, and intends to market the novel as a science fiction dystopian allegory of totalitarianism. On the contrary the French title “Cristallisation Secrète,” [“Secret Crystallization,”] provides a more ethereal title providing insinuation of the finer philosophical points the novel seeks to deliver. I hope to see Yoko Ogawa and her novel “The Memory Police,” on the shortlist for this year’s prize.

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is a rising star in the Dutch literary scene. Debuting as a poet, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld gathered noticeable attention, receiving the C. Buddingh’ Prize for a debut poetry collection, and media attention praising Rijneveld was one of the most interesting poetic voices in the Dutch literary scene. Her debut novel “The Discomfort of Evening,” was immediately praised, and has received an excited reception in the English language. The novel reflects on grief, sadness, and death through the eyes of a child, whose fantasies are both escape and understanding of the world. The novel employees the poetic exuberance of Marieke Lucas Rijneveld poetry, complete with distinct imagery. “The Discomfort of Evening,” has been a highly anticipated translated novel, and the reviews assure readers that it has been worth the wait.

Enrique Vila-Matas and Daniel Kehlmann are not new to the English language either. Enrique Vila-Matas is known for his postmodern and literary puzzle like narratives, employing different styles, genres, and metafictional elements to analyze and deconstruct literature as a component of human invention to express meaning, which in time is now a form which provides and depicts meaning. “Mac and His Problem,” is about an unemployed man (Mac) suffering from ennui. He lives off his wife’s salary and in his boredom decides to write and maintain a diary. His wife of course disproves of the act, believing it both a waste of time and a step further into depression, Mac on the other hand persists. In his usual routine, Mac has a chance encounter with a neighbour who happens to have written a collection of wistful and obscure stories who had some minor success. Mac decides he will read and obviously improve his neighbours stories. What follows is a surreal jaunt into the realm of the surreal; where Mac’s grip on reality becomes increasingly distant, as Mac slips further into the literary, one haunted by the inclinations of death, and invigorated with the joys of writing. Enrique Vila-Matas maintains true to his form, by continually exploring the realm and boundaries of metafiction, and literature as a treatise on literature. Daniel Kehlmann is one of the German languages most renowned contemporary writers, who has found reasonable success in the English language. Kehlmann’s recently translated novel “Tyll,” is a historical novel with magical realistic revisions. The novel recounts the legend and folklore of Tyll Ulenspiegel, who continually defies death in his artistic achievements, while exploring the complicated historical world—escaping the quiet village that was once home; the cannonballs flying on the battlefields of war; all the while meeting a unique brand of characters, which includes the exiled King and Queen of Bohemia. Daniel Kehlmann proves himself at being a masterful story teller, and an accomplished writer who can captivate audiences with a romp of adventure, while dazzling with his acute research, insight, and depth into the human heart and mind.

The last two writers are new to the English language. Nino Haratischwili is a Georgian writer, living in Germany and writing in German; her novel: “The Eighth Life,” is a family saga in the century that begins sweet, and turns sour. The family of this novel is Georgian who have found privilege, success, and prosperity, thanks to chocolate; a secret chocolate recipe which only they know. The novel has been praised for its expansive scope, historical accuracy, characterization, and otherwise enjoyable story. Fernanda Melchor’s English language debut “Hurricane Season,” has been praised for the same force in which it has entered the English language. The novel acutely captures the claustrophobia and paranoia of small town life, suddenly upended by the discovery of the murdered remains of the resident ‘witch.’ What follows is a linguistic torrent of the upended community, riddled with new acts of untold brutality or depravity. “Hurricane Season,” is a dazzling novel riddled with small town mythology, influenced by the ever present violence of the world; the same kind of violence that becomes a piece of the landscape itself. “Hurricane Season,” is a formidable debut in the English language, well received, critically praised, and haunting from start to finish. 

     

There it is Gentle Reader, the Booker International Prize Longlist, a unique blend of known and unknown writers to the English language. It’s a unique list blending different narratives, themes, stories, and forms. It’s a longlist noted for its remarkable diversity in forms, themes, geography, language, and writers. The difficulty now facing the judges is creating a shortlist, just as strong.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary

The Folio Prize Shortlist

Hello Gentle Reader

The literary award season is now beginning. The otherwise quiet Rathbones Folio Prize has released its shortlist for the year. The flame over the year has slowly dwindled for the Rathbones Folio Prize. Originally the Folio Prize was a highly anticipated literary award. It was advertised as the needed competitor of the preeminent Booker Prize. Despite the initial hype, the Folio Prize suffered setbacks: sponsorship problems; lack of advertisement; and muted response from the public, allowed the Folio Prize to fall to the wayside. It’s been operating for five years (it was not awarded in two-thousand and sixteen) since its initial inception, and though the Folio Prize has made greater attempts at gaining recognition, it still suffers from growing pains. On the surface, the Rathbones Folio Prize seeks to behave independently and unique from the Booker Prize—it allows poetry and short story collections to be nominated for the prize—it behaves in the same fashion as the Booker Prize, which has irked readers, who view the Rathbones Folio Prize as nothing more than the silver version of the otherwise golden Booker Prize.

How the Folio Prize selects their shortlist, and how literary judges are appointed, is however unique to the Folio Prize. The Folio Prize is overseen by the ‘Academy,’ which is comprised of two-hundred and fifty writers, who includes: Margaret Atwood, Peter Carey, A.S. Byatt, J.M Coetzee, and Zadie Smith. This ‘Academy,’ reads and submits up to three nominations for the award. Deliberations are conducted by awarding points to each work. A series of reading rounds is conducted by the academy. A longlist of sixty is compromised after these rounds. This sixty novel longlist is then assessed by a panel of judges consisting of three to five members of the academy. The judges are appointed by the academy. Further deliberations are conducted by the judges, as they work to create a shortlist. Due to the large list of works on the longlist, the Folio Prize jury does not release it, but releases an eight title shortlist.

The release dates of the Folio Prize shortlist vary year by year. Release dates range from early or late February; to early or late April; as well as in March. The lack of consistent dates, makes reporting on the Folio Prize an otherwise complicated matter in some situations, and may otherwise play against the prize receiving greater attention. Regardless of its faults, the following is this year’s Rathbones Folio Prize Shortlist: [list in no particular order]

Azadeh Moaveni – “Guest House for Young Widows,”

Valeria Luiselli – “Lost Children Archive,”

Sinéad Gleeson – “Constellations,”

Ben Lerner – “The Topeka School,”

James Lasdun – “Victory,”

Zadie Smith – “Grand Union,”

Laura Cumming – “On Chapel Sands,”

Fiona Benson – “Vertigo & Ghost,”

The shortlist is noticeably dominated by women. Of the eight shortlisted writers six of them are women, and the other two are men. It’s a mixture of known and unknown; poetry, short story collections, and novels.

One of the biggest names on the shortlist is: Zadie Smith; that young writer, who began her writing career a mere twenty years ago, and became a millennium literary wunderkind from there. Since her initial bestseller debut “White Teeth,” Zadie Smith has become a staple of the contemporary English language literature. Smith is shortlisted with her first short story collection: “Grand Union,”—which in typical fashion of Zadie Smith’s work, has been praised by critics. Even in the short story form, Zadie Smith once again proves her talents to the literary world never cease.

Valeria Luiselli was longlisted for the Booker Prize last year with the same novel “The Lost Children Archive.” Much like the Booker Prize, Valeria Luiselli becomes the first Mexican writer to be named as a contender for the Rathbones Folio Prize. The novel “The Lost Children Archive,” is a critical novel about the social and racial crisis gripping the world, exemplified further in the United States of America, and their otherwise intolerant treatment of illegal immigrants from their southern neighbor. The novel takes the perspective of an otherwise strange family participating in a disjointed road trip from New York to Arizona. The novel is postmodern in its approach; while being socially engaged and critical. Valeria Luiselli has proven herself to being one of those rising multilingual writers, who literary work and vision transcend both geographical boundaries, but also linguistic barriers. Valeria Luiselli proves herself to being a truly refreshing and rising star in the international literary scene.

Fiona Benson is shortlisted for her poetry collection “Vertigo & Ghost.” Since her debut, in two-thousand and fourteen, Fiona Benson was recognized early on as a mature and well defined poet. Her first collection of poetry “Bright Travelers,” was shortlisted for the T.S. Elliot Prize, the Forward Prize; it won the Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize. “Vertigo & Ghost,” in turn has received the Forward Prize. “Vertigo & Ghost,” explores violence, transgression, and femininity. The collection recounts the myths of Zeus; in particular the Greek god’s insatiable sexual appetite. In “Vertigo & Ghosts,” Zeus is depicted as a serial rapist; a violent electrical predator, prowling for prey: women. Sex becomes a weapon of power politics, through the act of penetration. The collection is charged with rage and frustration, both historical and personal; which leads to a contemporary world, where Zeus’s predation is still a predilection of today’s world, continually perpetrated throughout the world. Fiona Benson provides a poetry collection that deals with the sexual politics of the ages—historical, personal, and mythological—the collection bristles with rage and frustration.

Laura Cumming, Sinéad Gleeson, and Azadeh Moaveni are shortlisted for their non-fiction works. Laura Cumming “On Chapel Sands,” recounts the author’s, mothers abduction as a three year old girl, and the familiar secrets that lie hidden in a community of silence. It’s a testament of love, warmth, adoration, and admiration ones mother; while also being riddled with the complexities of family, and those intertwined personal histories. The Irish writer Sinéad Gleeson has been shortlisted with personal essay collection: “Constellations.” The essays delve into different topics concerning the writer. Many of the essays found in “Constellations,” recount pain and illness, but are offset by the foil of ruminations on culture, personal and political, in correspondence with the physical body. “Constellations,” is Sinéad Gleeson debut collection of essays; prior to the publication of these essays, Sinéad Gleeson had worked as an editor and critic of music and books for other publications. “Constellations,” has been praised as deeply thoughtful and powerful work, perhaps one of the most interesting and promising works on the shortlist. A piece of reportage, in her book: “Guest House for Young Widows,” Azadeh Moaveni looks into the women who joined the Islamic State. It’s a unique and powerful commentary on the quickly politicized issue of the Islamic State Brides cum Widows, who now seek to return to home, away from the battles, conflicts, and horrors that became their reality. Azadeh Moaveni has written other pieces about the cotemporary political situations of the Middle East previously. “Guest House for Young Widows,” is but continuation in her continual research, reportage, recording and documentation of the ever evolving and volatile regions shift in perspective between progression and maintaining its staunch traditions, customs, and identity.

This leaves only the two men on the shortlist to discuss: Ben Lerner and James Lasdum. Ben Lerner is on the shortlist with his autobiographical novel “The Topeka School.” The novel is the final installment in his trilogy of novels. Readers of Ben Lerner’s previous novels will recognize Adam Gordon, and welcome Lerner’s renowned conversational prose writing. The novel carries autobiographical elements, and perhaps to some degree could even be described as self-indulgent based off reviews and descriptions; but it’s the end of the trilogy, and those who have invested in the first two books will want to see it concluded. Finally, James Lasdum is shortlisted for: “Victory.” The two novellas that make up “Victory,” detail sexual violence (an otherwise common thread through this year’s shortlist); through a recount of love, lust, longing, betrayal, hate and guilt; James Lasdum analyses the fault lines and divisions of contemporary relationships, through the dominating power politics of sexual inequality. James Lasdum explores uncomfortable elements of the male psyche in relation to the changing societal perspective on masculinity and femininity, and a rolling boil of a sexual political divide between the two genders.

After carefully looking into the shortlist works of this year’s Rathbones Folio Prize, one can see it’s a diverse and unique shortlist, not just in content, but in form. Common threads can be found thematically through some of the books, such as sexual politics, corruption, gender divides; there are works on social and political commentary, as well as personal discussions. I maintain that the one writer who stands out as the most unique on this year’s Folio Prize Shortlist is: Sinéad Gleeson and her collection of personal essays: “Constellations.” Following Sinéad Gleeson, is the poet: Fiona Benson and her accomplished second collection of poetry, now cementing her name as not just an emerging poet to watch, but one  of mature grace and refined style.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader

Take Care

And As Always

Stay Well Read

M. Mary