Read the 2023 International Booker Prize short list
The short list for the 2023 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE contains some outstanding books. Read what the judges have to say, and then click through for your copies:
Standing Heavy by GauZ' (translated from French by Frank Wynne): ”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.”
Time Shelter Georgi Gospodinov (translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel): "A wide-ranging, thought-provoking, macabre and humorous novel about nationality, identity and ageing, and about the healing and destructive power of memory."
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel (translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey): “Two best friends share an aversion to ‘the human shackles’ of motherhood, only to discover that life has other plans. With a twisty, enveloping plot, the novel poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, and dependence – all in language so blunt it burns.”
Boulder by Eva Baltasar (translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches): “Boulder is a sensuous, sexy, intense book. Eva Baltasar condenses the sensations and experiences of a dozen more ordinary novels into just over 100 pages of exhilarating prose. An incisive story of queer love and motherhood that slices open the dilemmas of exchanging independence for intimacy.”
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan (translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim): "A carnivalesque fairy tale that celebrates independence and enterprise, a picaresque quest through Korea’s landscapes and history, Whale is a riot of a book. Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s vivid characters are foolish but wise, awful but endearing, and always irrepressible. This is a hymn to restlessness and self-transformation."
The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé (translated from French by Richard Philcox): ”The book borrows from the tradition of magical 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.”
>>Order your copies now.
>>The other long-listed books are also excellent.
The winner will be announced on 23 May.