Hello Gentle Reader,
This years International Booker Prize has come leaps and bounds over last years award. This year’s shortlist is both surprising but not without merit in its inductees and exclusions. It’s a mixture of internationally recognized giants and writers who are finding their foothold in translation. Without further delay here are the six shortlisted titles:
“The Director,” – Daniel Kehlmann
“Taiwan Travelogue,” – Yáng Shuāng-zǐ
“She Who Remains,” – Rene Karabash
“The Witch,” – Marie Ndiaye
“The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran,” – Shida Bazyar
The most telling feature of this year’s shortlist is how easily dominated it is by female writers, with the German Daniel Kehlmann being the only male on this year’s shortlist. This further supports recent macro trends in publishing and literary consumption, whereby female readers out pace men in consumption and interest, and there are subsequently more and more women being published than men. Kehlmann is an internationally renowned writer, whose novels with their appreciation for the absurd and ability to subvert and bringing into question reality, have delighted his readers both in his native German and abroad. “The Director,” continues Daniel Kehlmann’s exploration and reinvention of the historical by interrogating the strange relationship between the director and the Nazi’s. The novel poses serious questions about the integrity of art in service to political brutality; the absolution of being a cog within the machine and spared the conviction of collaborator or conspirator; all while questioning the sanctity of survival when compared to the destitution of sacrifice. “The Director,” is by in large the biggest name on this year’s shortlist and perceived by many the breakout front runner.
The Brazilian writer Ana Paula Maia equally confronts questions of brutality and violence with her novel “On Earth As It Is Beneath.” The penal colony of the novel is founded on the blood-soaked grounds of a colonial atrocity, where the enslaved were tortured and murdered, and while the penal colony was built under the auspicious understanding that it would rehabilitate its inmates to realign with societal expectations, what it actually succeeded in doing was merely detaining and retaining the inmates. Trapping them in their own world. what happens then, when this world is no longer sustainable? Violence breeds further violence. The inhumanity of it spreads with rabid fervor. In this Ana Paula Maia reckons with the baseline component of the human condition, one nurtured in our inherent primordial violent nature, which has only refined itself further into a sociopolitical context. It is here Ana Paula Maia begins to probe the unfathomable consequences of our failure as a species and as a society, to come to terms with our social and politically violent nature of our actions or as is so often common now, in action. One of you, Gentle Readers, João Böger high lighted Ana Paula Maia as quite the talent, and while the premise of “On Earth As it is Beneath,” may sound unsettling and dark in the tradition of say Golding’s “Lord of The Flies,” this novel and its thematic preoccupation with the shadow of human nature continues to be relevant to our times.
To some extent I am surprised to see Mathias Énard and Olga Ravn omitted from the shortlist. Perhaps more so for Ravn with her novel “The Wax Child,” than Énard. “The Deserters.” All the while, Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and her novel “Taiwan Travelogue,” has the air of a dark horse and should not be ruled out. It is not surprising to see “The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran,” also make it to the years shortlist, considering the events currently unfolding in the Middle East. Though all in all this year’s shortlist is decent enough. A curious offering of different genres, perspectives and narratives.
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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