LONDON —
Olga Tokarczuk, the Nobel Prize-winning Polish novelist, is among five female
writers shortlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize, arguably the
world’s most important award for fiction translated into English.
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Tokarczuk is
nominated for “The Books of Jacob,” along with translator Jennifer Croft, just
four years after the pair won the same prize for “Flights”.
Other high-profile
nominees on the six-strong shortlist, which was unveiled at the
London Book Fair on Thursday, include Mieko Kawakami, the star Japanese author best known
for “Breasts and Eggs,” and Claudia Piñeiro, the Argentine crime writer.
Tokarczuk’s “The
Books of Jacob” tells the story of Jacob Frank, a self-proclaimed messiah who
wanders around 18th-century Europe, acolytes in tow. When the Swedish Academy
awarded Tokarczuk the Nobel Prize in literature in 2019, they called “
The Books of Jacob” her “magnum opus”.
Originally
published in Poland in 2014, the almost 1,000-page-long novel has received rave
reviews in the US since the English translation was published this year.
Dwight Garner, in a review for The New York Times, called it “Chaucerian in its brio.”
The book is “an unruly, overwhelming, vastly eccentric novel” that is
“sophisticated and ribald and brimming with folk wit,” he added.
Kawakami is
nominated for “Heaven,” a novel about a relentlessly bullied 14-year-old,
translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd. Nadja Spiegelman, in a
review for The New York Times, said the book’s bullying scenes are “so lucid
you can almost feel the pain yourself.”
Piñeiro’s
shortlisted book is “Elena Knows,” about a grief-stricken mother who turns
detective to investigate her daughter’s apparent suicide. Kathleen Rooney, in a
review for The New York Times, said that the novel, translated from Spanish by
Frances Riddle, may at first glance seem like “a tight and terse mystery.” But,
she said, “it’s also a piercing commentary on mother-daughter relationships,
the indignity of bureaucracy, the burdens of caregiving, and the impositions of
religious dogma on women.”
The International
Booker Prize is separate from the
Booker Prize, which is for novels originally
published in English, but comes with the same prize money: about $65,000. For
the International Booker Prize, the money is split equally between the author
and translator.
The other
shortlisted titles are:
— “A New Name:
Septology VI-VII,” by Jon Fosse, a Norwegian writer and playwright who is a star
in his own country. Translated by Damion Searls, the novel is the last in a
series and follows a highly religious artist in the moments before his death.
— “Cursed Bunny,” a
short story collection by Korean writer Bora Chung. Translated by Anton Hur, it
combines elements of horror and science fiction to critique capitalism. Frank
Wynne, the chair of the judging panel for this year’s prize, said in an online
news conference that the collection was “somewhere between David Lynch and the
early body horror of David Cronenberg”.
— Geetanjali
Shree’s “Tomb of Sand,” translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, which follows
an 80-year-old Indian woman’s journey to Pakistan after her husband’s death.
Wynne said the novel’s premise may sound depressing, but the book “was anything
but.” It was filled with humor that must have made it very difficult to
translate, he added.
The winner of this
year’s prize will be announced May 26 at a ceremony in London.
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