'A very cool, very sexy list': 6 titles shortlisted for 2023 International Booker Prize
CBC Books | Posted: April 19, 2023 3:27 PM | Last Updated: April 19, 2023
The International Booker Prize has announced the six titles on their 2023 shortlist.
The annual award celebrates the best works of fiction from around the world that have been translated into English and published in the U.K., or Ireland. The £50,000 (approx. $83,169 Cdn) grand prize is divided equally between writer and translator.
Each of the six books on the shortlist originated in a different country — Bulgaria, Côte d'Ivoire, France, Mexico, South Korea and Spain; together they span four continents. The shortlisted translators represent five countries — Brazil, Ireland, South Korea, the United Kingdom and the United States.
There were no Canadians on the shortlist. The finalists, selected from a longlist of 13, are:
- Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
- Standing Heavy by GauZ', translated from French by Frank Wynne
- Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
- The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated from French by Richard Philcox
- Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim
- Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated from Catalan by Julia Sanches
French-Moroccan novelist Leïla Slimani, chair of this year's five-person panel, said in a statement that the shortlisted books "are all bold, subversive, nicely perverse." The shortlisted titles cover diverse themes ranging from the challenges of motherhood to the struggles of undocumented workers and the dangers of nostalgia.
She added: "I think I speak for the whole jury, when I say that I am proud of this list. I think it's a very cool, very sexy list."
This year's jury also includes Uilleam Blacker, one of Britain's leading literary translators from Ukrainian, Malaysian novelist Tan Twan Eng, New Yorker staff writer and critic Parul Sehgal and Frederick Studemann, literary editor of the Financial Times.
"We wanted each book to feel like an astonishment and to stand on its own," said Slimani. "There is something sneaky about a lot of them. I also feel that these are sensual books, where the question of the body is important. What is it like to have a body? How do you write about the experience of the body? These are not abstract or theoretical books, but on the contrary very grounded books about people, places, moments. All these authors also question the narrative and what it means to write a novel today."
Two of the novels on the shortlist are the authors' debuts: Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim; and Standing Heavy by GauZ'.
The Gospel According to the New World by Guadeloupe-born writer Condé represents the acclaimed author's final book. It is an epic story about a miracle baby who is rumoured to be the child of God.
At age 89, Condé is the oldest person ever to be nominated for the International Booker Prize and was previously shortlisted in 2015 for her entire body of work, which explores the African diaspora that resulted from slavery and colonialism in the Caribbean.
The winner will be announced on May 23 in London.