Why Peter Carey thinks The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald is an overlooked classic
In accepting the Golden Man Booker Prize, The English Patient author Michael Ondaatje commented that he wished "that those of us on this Man Booker list had been invited to propose and speak about what we felt were the overlooked classics — in order to enlarge what ought to be read, as opposed to relying on the usual suspects."
Inspired by this, CBC Books is asking previous Man Booker Prize winners: What novel would you consider to be an "overlooked classic" deserving of more readers?
Australian novelist Peter Carey has won the Man Booker Prize twice in his career, first in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and then again in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. He recommends reading The Rings of Saturn by W.G. Sebald.
"Fifty years of the Booker provides a very strong list with a few startling (very obvious) omissions like Angela Carter and Ali Smith.
"Also, for various quite understandable reasons, there has been no Booker for the greatest novelist of our time. I mean W.G. Sebald whose classic English novel, The Rings of Saturn, could not be honoured because the author, ensconced in Suffolk, chose to write in German and therefore, by definition, to be a writer in translation."