International Booker Prize 2023

The Longlist

The much anticipated International Booker Prize 2023 Long List has just been announced, and as always has a fantastic, eclectic mix of novels from around the world. As a reminder, for this prize, judges are 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. The winners’ prize purse is £50,000; £25,000 for the author and £25,000 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators).

At the age of 89, Maryse Conde is the oldest ever writer to be nominated, and with her husband Richard Philcox are the first writer/translator team to be listed.

For 2023 the list comprises books from 11 languages including Bulgarian, Tamil and Catalan for the first time.

Ukranian Writer Andrey Kharkov has been nominated for Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv. Despite typically writing in Russian he is currently banned in Russia due to his support for Ukraine in the current conflict.

Film Director Cheon Myeong Kwan makes the list with Whale, a collection of short stories of linked characters in a remote Korean village. Brimming with surprises and wicked humor, Whale is an adventure-satire of epic proportions by one of the most original voices in international literature.

Originally published in 2007, While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer has been translated by Katy Derbyshire from German and recently released in English. It follows three friends growing up in Leipzig during German reunification.

The panel of judges is chaired by the prize-winning French-Moroccan novelist, Leïla Slimani. The panel also includes Uilleam Blacker, one of Britain’s leading literary translators from Ukrainian; Tan Twan Eng, the Booker-shortlisted Malaysian novelist; Parul Sehgal, staff writer and critic at the New Yorker; and Frederick Studemann, Literary Editor of the Financial Times.

The shortlist of six books will be announced on Tuesday, April 18. The winning title will be announced at a ceremony at the Sky Garden in London on May 23, 2023.

Last years winner was Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand. Set in Northern India, an eighty-year-old woman slips into a deep depression after the death of her husband, and then resurfaces to gain a new lease on life.

The International Booker Prize 2023 longlist

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Europa)

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox (World Editions)

Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches (And Other Stories)

Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose)

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Verso)

Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov, translated by Reuben Woolley (MacLehose)

The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker (Fitzcarraldo)

While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer, translated by Katy Derbyshire (Fitzcarraldo)

Pyre by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Pushkin)

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey (Fitzcarraldo)

A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding by Amanda Svensson, translated by Nichola Smalley (Scribe)

Ninth Building by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang (Honford Star)

Quizlit’s Recommendations

Boulder by Eva Baltasar

Short, intense and full of dazzling images, Boulder is the story of a woman who wants to be alone. Life makes it very difficult for her and she betrays herself.

The book begins with the narrator in Chiloé (an island in Chile, in Patagonia), although she comes from a precarious situation in Barcelona. She flees the city and ends up embarking on a merchant ship and decides to stay there as a cook.

One day, when the ship is docked, the protagonist/narrator – nameless throughout the novel – falls in love with Samsa, an Icelandic geologist who ends up taking her to her island and who will call her Boulder. Driven by desire and what she assumes to be love, she leaves the ocean and her work on the ship, to move to land and start a typical life that she does not know if she will get used to.

Pyre by Perumal Murugan

Saroja and Kumaresan are in love. After a hasty wedding, they arrive in Kumaresan’s village, harbouring the dangerous secret that their marriage is an inter-caste one, likely to anger the villagers should they learn of it. Kumaresan is confident that all will be well. He naively believes that after the initial round of curious questions, the inquiries will die down and the couple will be left alone. But nothing is further from the truth. The villagers strongly suspect that Saroja must belong to a different caste. It is only a matter of time before their suspicions harden into certainty and, outraged, they set about exacting their revenge.

With spare, powerful prose, Murugan masterfully conjures a terrifying vision of intolerance in this devastating tale of innocent young love pitted against chilling savagery.

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Conde

One Easter Sunday, Madame Ballandra puts her hands together and exclaims: ‘A miracle!’ Baby Pascal is strikingly beautiful, brown in complexion, with grey-green eyes like the sea. But where does he come from? Is he really the child of God? So goes the rumour, and many signs throughout his life will cause this theory to gain ground.

From journey to journey and from one community to another, Pascal sets off in search of his origins, trying to understand the meaning of his mission. Will he be able to change the fate of humanity? And what will the New World Gospel reveal? For all its beauty, vivacity, humour, and power, Maryse Conde’s latest novel is above all a work of combat. Lucid and full of conviction, Conde attests that solidarity and love remain our most extraordinary and lifesaving forces.

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