The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist

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The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist

18 April 2023

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, book cover.

The 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist was announced earlier this evening (east coast of Australia time) at the London Book Fair, and includes these six titles:

Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches
The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated from French by Richard Philcox
Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from French by Frank Wynne
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey

The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the United Kingdom and Ireland. The winner will be named in London on Tuesday 23 May 2023.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo tops 2023 Dymocks Top 101 book poll

11 April 2023

The Dictionary of Lost Words, by Pip Williams, book cover

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, by American author Taylor Jenkins Reid, has taken out the number one spot in the 2023 Dymocks Top 101 book poll.

Another title I’ve also read, The Dictionary of Lost Words, by South Australian based writer Pip Williams, was voted into the number two slot.

Iris, the new name of the Booker Prize trophy

31 March 2023

After a public vote to select a name for the Booker Prize trophy, convenors of the British literary award have revealed Iris to be the winning choice. Interestingly though, the winner of the vote was actually the name Bernie, being a nod to Bernardine Evaristo, the first black woman to win the Booker, with her 2019 novel Girl, Woman, Other.

Evaristo however felt late Irish British novelist Iris Murdoch should instead be honoured. The name Iris came in at second place in the poll:

‘I’m surprised and flattered that the name Bernie was nominated by readers in the Booker Prizes’ trophy competition and that it received the most votes in the public poll,’ Evaristo said. ‘But as the only living author on the list, I feel it would be more fitting for the honour to go to a writer who is no longer with us,’ she added.

Limberlost by Robbie Arnott on Dylan Thomas Prize shortlist 2023

23 March 2023

Tasmania based Australian author Robbie Arnott’s 2022 novel, Limberlost, has been named on the shortlist of the 2023 Dylan Thomas Prize.

Limberlost joins five other titles on this year’s shortlist:

Seven Steeples by Sara Baume
God’s Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu
I’m a Fan by Sheena Patel
Send Nudes by Saba Sams
Bless the Daughter Raised by a Voice in Her Head by Warsan Shire

The prize is named in honour of Welsh poet and writer Dylan Thomas, who died in 1953, and is awarded for the best published literary work in the English language, written by an author aged thirty-nine, or under. The winner will be announced on Thursday 11 May 2023.

Jinghua Qian: my role as a sensitivity reader

22 March 2023

Jinghua Qian, writing for ArtsHub, about working as a sensitivity reader:

I might notice that the portrayal of a cultural activity is off: Australians talk about going ‘to the footy’ but not ‘to the ball game’.

The article I link to was published about three and a half years ago. Sensitivity readers aren’t exactly new, it’s just we’ve been hearing a lot about their work recently.

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Anne de Marcken, Jonathan Buckley, win Novel Prize 2022

22 March 2023

It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by American interdisciplinary artist and writer Anne de Marcken, and Tell, by British author and teacher Jonathan Buckley, have been named joint winners of the 2022 Novel Prize.

The Novel Prize is a biennial award for a book-length work of literary fiction written in English by published and unpublished writers around the world. It offers $10,000 to the winner and simultaneous publication in North America by New Directions, in the UK and Ireland by the London-based Fitzcarraldo Editions, and in Australia and New Zealand by the Sydney-based publisher Giramondo.

Both novels will be published simultaneously in 2024 by the three participating prize publishers. Australian author Jessica Au was the inaugural winner of the 2020 Novel Prize, with her book, Cold Enough for Snow.

The 2023 Indie Book Awards winners

20 March 2023

Craig Silvey has taken out both the Indie Book of the Year award, and the Children’s book gong, in the 2023 Indie Book Awards.

The Indie Book of the Year award: Runt by Craig Silvey
Fiction: Horse by Geraldine Brooks
Non-fiction: The Book Of Roads And Kingdoms by Richard Fidler
Debut fiction: All That’s Left Unsaid by Tracey Lien (which I wrote about here)
Illustrated non-fiction: First Nations Food Companion by Damien Coulthard and Rebecca Sullivan
Children’s: Runt by Craig Silvey
Young Adult: The Brink by Holden Sheppard

2023 International Booker Prize longlist

15 March 2023

The 2023 International Booker Prize longlist was unveiled yesterday, and features eleven novels published internationally, which have been translated into English.

The 2023 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 books, authors and translators the prize celebrates offer readers a window onto the world and the opportunity to experience the lives of people from different cultures.

French author Maryse Condé, at age 89, becomes the oldest person to be named on the Booker International longlist, with her novel The Gospel According to the New World.

Works by a film director, four poets, two former security guards, and a writer who had declared himself “dead” (curious), are also included. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 18 April 2023.

More books by women than men were published in 2020

8 March 2023

Over fifty percent of books published in 2020 in the United States, were written by women, says Joel Waldfogel, an economist at the University of Minnesota:

By analyzing data from Goodreads, Bookstat, Amazon, and the National Library of Congress, Waldfogel found that women’s share of published titles increased from around 20% in the 1970s to over 50% by 2020. This likely displaced some male authors, but the change wasn’t just that male authors were replaced by female authors. Rather, the whole industry grew, and by 2021, female-authored books sold more copies on average than those written by men.

While I couldn’t immediately locate data regarding books published by gender in Australia, the trend here is mirrored, to a degree, in terms of reviews of books published by women, and non-binary writers. According to the Stella Count, fifty-five percent of books reviewed in Australian newspapers and magazines, in 2020, were written by women.

I’m not sure if that means more Australian books were written by women than men in 2020, but these numbers suggest that might be the case.

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Being productive or not on writer’s residency by Alice Robb

5 March 2023

A secluded, comfortable, cabin deep in the woods, without internet or phone access, seems like the ideal location to spend a writer’s residency. But writing without day to day distractions may not be as conducive to productivity as it sounds, says American author Alice Robb, writing for Literary Hub:

I pulled up the document with my half-finished book and read a few sentences. But I couldn’t focus: I wondered if anyone had texted me overnight. I considered hiking down to the WiFi zone, then scolded myself. I had come all this way to write without distraction. I returned to the document, trying to reorient myself, but before I could, the kettle hissed. Five minutes later, I was back at the desk, mug of coffee in hand. I reread the same sentences. Were they any good? I looked out the window. I looked back at the screen. I wondered if anyone had texted me.

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Alice Robb, literature, writing

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