The International Booker Prize 2024 Shortlist has been announced with six titles of fiction translated into English, from a longlist of thirteen.
The shortlist is as follows:
Not a River by Selva Almada (translated by Annie McDermott)
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Michael Hofmann)
The Details by Ia Genberg (translated by Kira Josefsson)
Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong (translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae)
What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma (translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey)
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz)
Eleanor Wachtel, Chair of the judges writes of this shortlist:
Reading is a necessary enlargement of human experience. Why be confined to one perspective, one life? Novels carry us to places where we might never set foot and connect us with new sensations and memories. Our shortlist shows us lives lived against the backdrop of history or, more precisely, interweaves the intimate and the political in radically original ways. These books bear the weight of the past while at the same time engaging with current realities of racism and oppression, global violence and ecological disaster. Some seem altogether timeless in their careful and vivid accounts of the dynamics of family, love and heartbreak, trauma and grief.
The prize awards £25,000 to the author and £25,000 to the translator, in recognition of the essential work of translators in bringing fiction to a wider audience. I am keen to read more translated fiction, and some of the titles on this shortlist sound interesting if I can track them down.
The 2024 Stella Prize Shortlist has been announced! The twelve nominees have been whittled down to six finalists in the running for this important literary award.
In compiling this shortlist, the chair of the judging panel, Beejay Wilcox, says:
“All of life and death is here in these pages: illness, madness, love, sex, slaughter, parenthood, sovereignty, climate, Country. But none of the books on this shortlist tell readers what to think. They do not hector, lecture or preach. Rather, they open spaces for doubt and self-examination; for disagreement and camaraderie; for rage, absurdity and exultation; for the grotesque and the gorgeous. They invite us in. And they trust us to make up our own minds. This is the quality that distinguished them in the judging room: their mighty generosity.”
I was not inspired by the longlist and am less excited by the shortlist. The only title that interests me is Feast. Again, I feel the prize should be targeting fiction only - or separated into categories - rather than a catch all. If I had to guess a winner, I would bet on Alexis Wright who is universally excellent.
Tolstoy's Anna Karenina (1877) opens with the famous line 'happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way'. I thought of this line as I read Anne Enright's The Wren, The Wren (2023), the story of a family and the ways in which complex relationships have intergenerational impacts.
Nell McDaragh is the grand-daughter of a famous Irish poet, Phil McDaragh, whom she never knew. At age 22 she leaves home to become a writer for a travel blog and starts a relationship with a controlling man who is not the loving boyfriend she seeks.
Nell's relationship with her mother, Carmel, is fraught and layered with intergenerational trauma. The mother-daughter pair love each other fiercely, but often in unhealthy ways. Carmel has difficulty connecting with people, having been abandoned by her father Phil, who left his terminally ill wife and young family. She also struggles to reconcile a man who writes such beautiful verse with his personal behaviour. One such verse, 'the wren, the wren' he wrote for Carmel, and she holds on to this as proof of his love.
Carmel awaits a visit from Nell and watches an old video of her father being interviewed. With his Irish charm, Phil recounts that his wife 'got sick, unfortunately, and the marriage did not survive'. Carmel fumes as the reason for the marriage failure was her father's wandering eye and his inability to take responsibility for his own actions. Phil died years ago, but his shadow looms large. Carmel's sister Imelda sees him quite differently, forging a wedge between the women.
Enright tells the story in alternating narratives between Carmel and Nell, with Phil's poems scattered throughout the novel. As I read, I listened to the audiobook version where Enright performed Carmel to perfection. I also enjoyed Owen Roe's Phil and Aoife Duffin voicing Nell. I had the pleasure of seeing Enright at the All About Women festival last month, where she read passages from the book, and signed a copy of the book for me.
Enright's prose is magnificent. She infuses darkness with humour, and creates realistic, fallible humans. Birds recur throughout the novel, as Nell recalls their song, and travels to Australia and New Zealand where she wonders at the exotic birds. Nature is also a theme of many of Phil's poems. The inclusion of this verse was a brilliant way to contrast Phil's outward appearance with the reality of those who knew him.
I absolutely loved The Wren, The Wren - an early contender for my favourite read of 2024. Absolutely brilliant!
The Wren, the Wren has been longlisted for the 2024 Women's Prize for Fiction. Enright is the author of seven novels including the Booker Prize winning The Gathering (2007) and The Green Road (2016) which was previously shortlisted for the Women's Prize. I really must read more of her novels!
Some of my favourite novels are written by journalists, who turn the skills they honed investigating real events to spin a terrific yarn. Geraldine Brooks infuses her novels with meticulously researched detail. Annie Proulx deeply understands human nature. Chris Hammer understands police procedurals. Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Tom Wolfe, George Orwell and others have all forged successful careers both in journalism and as novelists.
Investigative reporter Louise Milligan has turned her attention to fiction in her debut novel, Pheasants Nest (2024). The story centres around Kate Delaney, a dynamic journalist who becomes a news story when she goes missing, presumed kidnapped. Her lawyer boyfriend, Liam Carroll, and best friend, fashion writer Sylvia Estrellita, contact the police. They don't hold out much hope, so hit the road themselves looking for clues.
Meanwhile, Kate is in the back of a car, bound and gagged, racing down the Hume Highway with a man only referred to as The Guy. Kate is in pain from his assault on her, and terrified by the prospects of what might happen to her. She has attended enough courtrooms to know what sort of fate might await her. Will her kidnapper make a mistake? Will her boyfriend find her? Will the police solve the crime?
This is a quick-paced page turner and I read this novel in a few hours. There were aspects of it that I didn't like - too much backstory about various characters, an impossibly fabulous central character who is just the right kind of victim, and the way Milligan always used people's full names. However, Pheasants Nest is an impressive debut novel and I am glad Milligan made the leap into fiction.
A woman leaves her life in Sydney behind for a short break at a convent's guest house on the Monaro Plains in NSW. She is at loose ends, uncertain about her job and at the end of her marriage. While she is not religious, she observes the rituals performed by the nuns, attending their prayers and services. She is trying to find inner peace in a noisy world. When she leaves, she does not expect to return.
A few months later she is back to stay at the convent. She does not take vows or adopt the faith, but rather she performs silent service - cooking, cleaning and working in the yard. She lives a humble life among the sisters and becomes connected with nature in a way she could not have imagined when working at the Threatened Species Rescue Centre. For the most part, nothing much happens - just a slow, day-to-day pace of a life disconnected from the wider world.
While they are largely protected from the COVID-19 pandemic in their remote location, the mouse plague that ran through New South Wales in 2021 is upon them. Our protagonist gets to work trying to protect what little the nuns have from being ravaged by mice. She chases, traps, and buries the mice and lies awake at night listening to them scurry in the walls.
Into the mix comes Helen Parry, an activist nun who has been forced to return to this convent for a short stay disrupting the rhythm and bringing forth memories of the protagonist's childhood when she was a school with Parry. Parry has brought with her the bones of a sister who died overseas, and the nuns keep vigil while they await permission to bury a member of their order.
Wood has crafted a compelling novel where the pace is slowed and the narrator is tested by these three incursions - the mice, the remains and Parry - into her solitude. Through her descriptive prose, Wood makes the most of even the smallest moments in the daily lives of these women. It is a story where seemingly nothing much happens and the reader is left wondering what the narrator is thinking. It is written in the style of a journal, jotting down what happens, a story told for no one but herself.
What I loved about the novel is that the narrator is respectful of the religious beliefs of the nuns, but is not compelled to join them. She exists outside their belief structure, but is welcomed regardless. I also love that Wood writes realistic women characters in their 50s, a demographic that deserves great novelists like Wood.
My reviews of other great novels by Charlotte Wood are available on this blog:
Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle (2021), set in the early 1960s in New York City, centres around Ray Carney, an African American salesman who seeks to run an honest furniture store in his community. Ray wants to distance himself from his past (his father was a local criminal) and be an upstanding member of society. With a pregnant wife and young child, Ray struggles to provide but is determined to be a good husband and father.
Ray's cousin Freddie runs with a dicey crew. Freddie tells Ray that gangster Miami Joe is planning to rob Hotel Theresa and wants Ray to fence the stolen items. Ray is not interested, but after the heist the thieves show up with a necklace they want Ray to sell. Things go badly in the aftermath and Ray gets dragged deeper into the criminal enterprise.
Ray finds a balance between his legitimate work selling Ardent sofas and flipping stolen goods. Ray doesn't want to be shady, and tries to tell himself he isn't, even as he performs his dodgy side hustle. As his business takes off he is able to expand the store, hire more staff and move to a nicer apartment. But cousin Freddie has a proposition which brings Ray to the attention of influential and dangerous men.
During this period, Harlem was undergoing substantial change, and the novel culminates with the Harlem Riots of 1964. A white off-duty police officer shot and killed black teenager James Powell, in a scene all too common in America. The six days of riots that followed involved 4000 people and resulted in one death, 118 injured and over 400 arrests.
I really enjoy Whitehead's prose. He writes in a cinematic way which allows readers to visualise the action but also grounds the tale with a sense of place. Yet there were times I felt the story lost momentum - the middle third was a struggle to stay engaged, between thrilling Theresa job and fast-paced Van Wyck affair. While reading, I also listened to the audiobook brilliantly performed by Dion Graham who infused each character with unique, authentic voice. Graham got me through the awkward middle and kept me gripped until the end. I loved his narration so much I have looked out other books he has voiced.
Harlem Shuffle is the first instalment of a planned trilogy. In May 2023 I heard Whitehead speak at the Sydney Writers' Festival about Crook Manifesto (2023), the second book, and I was able to get both books signed by the author. My review of Whitehead's The Nickel Boys (2019) is also available on this blog.
The shortlist of the inaugural Women's Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist has been announced, whittling the sixteen titles on the longlist down to a shortlist of six.
The 2024 shortlist is as follows:
Laura Cumming - Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death
Naomi Klein - Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World
Noreen Masud - A Flat Place
Tiya Miles -All that She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake
Madhumita Murgia - Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI
Safiya Sinclair - How to Say Babylon
Meh! I was really hoping that Anna Funder's awesome Wifedomwould be shortlisted and am saddened it is not. However, I am really interested in the books particularly by Laura Cumming, and Madhumita Murgia. I have also heard good things about the works by Noreen Masud and Safiya Sinclair by readers I admire.
The winner will be revealed on 13 June 2024. Happy reading!
Want more? Here is the video of the shortlist announcement.
The 2024 Stella Prize longlist has been released! The annual literary award celebrating women and non-binary writers of both fiction and non-fiction is named after Australian author Stella Miles Franklin.
Past winners include some of my favourite books on recent years:
Claire Wright for The Forgotten Rebels of Eureka (2014)
Carrie Tiffany for Mateship with Birds (2013)
On 4 March 2024, the longlist was revealed with 12 nominees. I have not read any of the titles, and many of the authors are unknown to me, so I look forward to exploring these books further.
The 2024 longlist is as follows:
Katia Ariel - The Swift Dark Tide
Ariel's memoir explores a period in her life when she unexpectedly falls in love with a woman, despite having a husband and children. The judges write 'It is no mid-life crisis. Rather, it is a mid-life realising of desire and possibility; of queer becoming. Ariel's memoir reads as an unabashed re-telling of meticulous diary entries, kept to provide a constant during her love affair with a woman, a period of welcome change.'
Stephanie Bishop - The Anniversary
A novelist is on a cruise with her husband to celebrate their wedding anniversary. Patrick, once her professor, is much older than her. His success is waning and hers is on the rise and now she is about to eclipse his fame. When a storm hits, Patrick falls overboard and the truth of her marriage begins to unravel. The judges write that this 'is a book as clever as it is delicious'. Bishop is the author of The Singing (2005), The Other Side of the World (2015) and Man Out of Time (2018).
Katherine Brabon - Body Friend
Three women meet while recuperating from operations. Frida swims daily to rebuild her strength. Sylvia prefers to rest to allow her body to heal. The unnamed protagonist attempts each of their forms of convalescence in an attempt to recover from her chronic illness. The judges write that 'this novel of experimental heft and eloquence, which gives shape to the complexities of chronic pain'. Brabon is known for her previous works The Memory Artist and The Shut Ins.
Ali Cobby Eckermann - She Is the Earth
In this verse novel, Eckermann uses 90 short lyric poems to tell her story of her journey and her connection to the Earth. Flora, fauna and the elements feature, grounding the verse. The judges say Eckermann is 'a writer at the height of her powers'. Eckermann is a Yankunytjatjara poet and artist. She won the NSW Premier's Literary Award for her novel Ruby Moonlight in 2013. I love poetry and have seen enough extracts of she is the earth to make me want to read more. Will have to check it out.
Melissa Lucashenko - Edenglassie
Goorie author Lucashenko is best known for her novel Too Much Lip, which won the Miles Franklin Award in 2019. Her novel Steam Pigs (1997) was one of the first novels I read when I moved to Australia. Her latest novel Edenglassie jumps between present day Brisbane where activist Winona and Dr Johnny care for Granny Eddie, and 1855 where Nita, a Ngugi woman, falls for Mulanyin, as colonisation changes their homeland. The judges said 'these are characters who need to exist in the world. Lucashenko's testament to them and their stories makes us all bear witness'. I am currently reading this novel.
Maggie MacKellar - Graft: Motherhood, Family and a Year on the Land
Set on a Merino farm in Tasmania, McKellar writes of her life through the lambing seasons. Spanning a year in which her youngest son is in his last year of high school, ready to leave home, and Maggie prepares herself for a new identity as an empty-nester. The judges write 'it is hard to think of a finer example of writing the cataclysm of drought particular to Australia than this.' Graft is MacKellar's fifth book.
Kate Mildenhall - The Hummingbird Effect
In Melbourne 1933 during the Depression, Lil Martin invites Peggy to board in her home. In 2020 at an aged care home, Hilda is isolated by the pandemic. In 2031 singer La works in a warehouse, and in 2181 Maz is diving or remnants of the past. This novel explores questions of life and death. The judges write 'The Hummingbird Effect is speculative fiction at its finest: inventive, mind-expanding and wonderfully ambitious'. I am a fan of speculative fiction so will add this to my list.
Emily O'Grady - Feast
Alison and Patrick are an eccentric creative couple living an isolated life in Scotland. Neve, Patrick's teenage daughter arrives from Australia to spend a year with her father and stepmother. On her eighteenth birthday, Neve's mother Shannon arrives in Scotland to join in the celebration with a hidden agenda. The judges write 'told from the perspectives of three connected women, Feast reminds us not so much to be wary of unreliable narrators, but of the subjectivity of moral value.' This is O'Grady's debut novel. This book sounds intriguing and brings together some of my favourite things: Scotland, unreliable narrators, and tales of strong women. Add it to the list!
Sanya Rushdi - Hospital
In Melbourne Sanya is diagnosed with her third episode of psychosis. She is taken to a pyschiatric ward where she ponders mental health and institutional treatments. The judges call Hospital 'an unflinching, insightful and delicately wrought work of auto fiction that brings devastating lucidity to the often-opaque realm of mental health.' This is Rushdi's debut novel, translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha.
Hayley Singer - Abandon Every Hope: Essays for the Dead
In Singer's first book, she explore how we write the life of the dead. In particular she is drawn to the ethical issue of killing animals for meat, challenging readers to think about what we consume. The judges write 'experimental and jostling in its use of poetic, lyric, academic and reflective writing styles, this book grapples with the industrial meat complex.' As a lifelong vegetarian I am glad someone has written about this, but I don't think this book is for me.
Laura Elizabeth Woollett - West Girls
This novel of interconnected short stories explores obsession with beauty. Luna seeks a modelling career, presenting herself as part Asian in an effort to differentiate herself from the other white girls vying for the spotlight. The judges write 'moving from suburban malls to modelling catwalks, empty highways to crowded Instagram feeds, West Girls is as real as it is painful.' Woollett is known for her previous novels Beautiful Revolutionary (2018) and The Newcomer (2021).
Alexis Wright - Praiseworthy
Set in the north of Australia in a small town surrounded by a mysterious haze. The locals try to combat the haze in various ill-fated schemes. A crazed visionary named Chaos Steel steps in with a vision to use 5 million feral donkeys to solve the climate crisis and create a carbon-neutral Aboriginal transport company. His wife and sons have their own plans. The judges write 'a canon-crushing Australian novel for the ages. Fierce and gloriously funny, Praiseworthy is a genre-defiant epic of climate catastrophe proportions'. One of Australia's most lauded authors, Wright is a previous winner of the Stella Prize for her work Tracker(2018).
For more information and the complete judges comments, see the Stella Prize website.
I was disappointed that Charlotte Wood was not longlisted for Stone Yard Devotional and I thought that we might see Madeleine Gray's Green Dot, Sally Colin-James' One Illuminated Thread, Nadine Cohen's Everyone and Everything and Susie Miller's Prima Facie on the longlist. As I have said previously, I wish the Stella Prize would stick with fiction. I am glad that the Women's Prize has recently split into fiction and non-fiction categories, and perhaps in future Stella can do the same.
I am currently reading Edenglassie. I am also intrigued by the works by O'Grady, Mildenhall, Wright and Eckermann. The short time period between announcements of long and shortlists makes it hard to read all these titles before the nominees are whittled down.
The Shortlist will be announced on 4 April 2024 with the winner of the $60,000 prize will be announced on 2 May 2024.
I have not attended the All About Women festival since before the pandemic, but thought I would go this year as the line up looked great. I booked three sessions, leaving myself time to explore the scene down at the Sydney Opera House.
Here's how I spent my day, Sunday 10 March 2024, at All About Women.
Mary Beard
As a lover of the history of the Roman Empire, I was thrilled to hear from classics scholar Mary Beard. In a session moderated by Bri Lee, Beard had the entire Concert Hall enthralled as she spoke about her latest work Emperor of Rome (2024), which Lee described as a villainous origin story of the patriarchy. They spoke about how Ancient Rome was actually quite diverse and about how she responded to critics who thought she should not appear on television because of her looks.
Having mostly read Mary Beard, one thing that I did not anticipate was how funny she was. She is so quick witted, and delightfully engaging. In one exchange she was talking about Marcus Aurelius and his meditations. She calls them Aurelius' Jottings to Himself, as it was never intended to be published.
After the session, I joined the queue of admirers to have a book signed. The festival has instituted a rule of one book per person, so I had to make a quick decision as to which of my many Beard books I would request signing. I opted for Twelve Caesars (2021) in which Mary Beard explores Roman history and its influence on art and culture, with its parallels to Suetonius. She was lovely to speak with.
Anne Enright
Irish author Anne Enright's latest novel, The Wren, The Wren, follows a mother and daughter impacted by brutality of family violence. It has just been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and I have been enjoying reading it.
This session, moderated by author Madeline Gray, began with Enright reading two passages. She chose one of Nell, the daughter, and another of Carmel, the mother, which perfectly captured their essence. Enright spoke about writing and how she finds her characters. She talked about how she likes her readers to make up their own minds about characters.
After this session I met Anne Enright and asked her to sign a copy of The Gathering for me, winner of the 2007 Booker Prize*. I told her it was a shame we could only get one signed, as I had The Wren, The Wren with me too. She did a quick shuffle of my books so I could get them both signed!
Anna Funder
Readers of this blog will know that I adore Anna Funder and love all of her work. Her latest book, Wifedom, is an intriguing look at George Orwell's wife Eileen O'Shaughnessy. Funder sat down with Jemma Birrell to discuss the book and how it came to be.
Funder spoke about how much she admires Orwell and had read many biographies which diminished or erased the role his wife played in his success. She then found Eileen's voice in her letters to her friend Nora, and found a fearless wit and intellect. Funder spoke about how she conducted her research and the way in which she used various techniques to craft her book.
After the session Funder signed a copy of Wifedom for me. The book has been longlisted for the Women's Prize for Non-Fiction and we will find out if it has been shortlisted at the end of the month.
All About Women has a wonderful lineup with some of my favourite thinkers speaking - Tara Moss, Jane Caro, Jan Fran, Jamila Rizvi, Grace Tame, Clementine Ford, Chanel Contos, Nakkiah Luis, Jess Hill, Brooke Boney, Bridie Jabour, and Sisonke Msimang. There were plenty of other sessions that I would have liked to have attended at the All About Women festival - including Yellowface with Rebecca F Kuang - but I found the festival schedule really tricky with the staggered session times that overlapped or had short breaks between. The Opera House is a lovely venue, but it is hard to navigate between the various rooms. I also found the Kinokuniya pop-up bookshop disappointing as there was no space to wander around and the queues were terrible.
Bonus Event - Bessel van der Kolk
The night before the All About Women festival I attended another event at the Sydney Opera House. A friend had a spare ticket to hear Bessel van der Kolk, author of The Body Keeps the Score. What a fascinating discussion about his research and practice. He described trauma as being different from memory, but more of a re-living the experience.
He talked about his more recent work in which he has been researching the use of psychedelics on trauma - specifically MDMA - and how this has been assisting patients. It was all very interesting, with a sold out crowd in the Concert Hall to hear him speak - no wonder his book has been on bestseller lists for over a decade! It was a really interesting session and I am so glad I was able to attend.
*Booker Books - I have a growing collection of signed Booker winners - including Damon Galgut's The Promise (2021), Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other (2019), Marlon James' A Brief History of Seven Killings (2015), Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North (2014), Eleanor Catton's The Luminaries (2013), and Thomas Keneally's Schindler's Ark (1982). Delighted to add Anne Enright's The Gathering (2007) to this collection.
The Atlantic has just published a list of 'Great American Novels' naming 100 titles published in the past 100 years. I love a book list and was intrigued by this list which The Atlantic claims 'represent the best of what novels can do: challenge us, delight is, pull us in and then release us, a little smarter and more alive than we were before.' Let's check out this exciting list )novels in bold I have read, linked where there is a review on this blog):
F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (1925)
Theodore Dreiser - An American Tragedy (1925)
Gertrude Stein - The Making of Americans (1925)
Willa Cather - Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927)
Ernset Hemingway - A Farewell to Arms (1929)
Nella Larsen - Passing (1929)
William Faulkner - The Sound and the Fury (1929)
William Faulkner - Absalom, Absalom! (1936)
Djuna Barnes - Nightwood (1936)
Younghill Kang - East Goes West (1937)
Zora Neale Hurston - Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
John Dos Passos - U.S.A. (1937)
John Fante - Ask the Dust (1939)
Raymond Chandler - The Big Sleep (1939)
Nathanael West - The Day of the Locust (1939)
John Steinbeck - The Grapes of Wrath (1939)
Richard Wright - Native Son (1940)
Carson McCullers - The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (1940)
Patricia Lockwood - No One Is Talking About This (2021)
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers - The Love Songs of W E B Du Bois (2021)
Catherine Lacey - Biography of X (2023)
What an exciting list. Many of the novels here are among my favourites - Grapes of Wrath, The Bell Jar, The Group, Fahrenheit 451, The Shipping News, Visit from the Goon Squad - and I am glad they included many of the beloved books of my childhood like Charlotte's Web and Are you there God, it's me Margaret.
I have only read 30 of the titles on the list, and had expected that I would read more. I remember doing an American Literature course when I was at the University of Toronto, which included Twain, Thoreau, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Fitzgerald and others. Many of my favourite American novels are just outside the 100 year window on which this list is based - like Edith Wharton's House of Mirth (possibly my favourite novel ever), Kate Chopin's The Awakening, and novels by Henry James.
The list reminds me that I have started and not finished many of these titles, some of which I meant to return to (A Brief History of Seven Killings) and some which I did not enjoy and gave up on (Housekeeping, A Sports and a Pastime).
Many of the books on my Fifty/five list are listed here, and some which are recent acquisitions like Ann Petry's The Street. But I also love that there are novels and authors I have never heard of, which gives me the opportunity to explore and add more titles to my wish list!
The International Booker Prize 2024 Longlist has been announced with thirteen titles of fiction translated into English.
The longlist is as follows:
Not a River by Selva Almada (translated by Annie McDermott)
Simpatico by Rodrigo Blanco Calderon (translated by Noel Hernandez Gonzalez and Daniel Hahn)
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Michael Hofmann)
The Details by Ia Genberg (translated by Kira Josefsson)
White Nights by Urszula Honek (translated by Kate Webster)
Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong (translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae)
A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare (translated by John Hodgson)
The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Boris Dralyuk)
What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma (translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey)
Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo (translated by Leah Janeczko)
The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone (translated by Oonagh Stransky)
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz)
Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener (translated by Julia Sanches)
Eleanor Wachtel, Chair of the judges writes of this longlist:
From a protest on the top of a factory chimney in South Korea to a transformative fishing trip in remote Argentina, from the violent streets of Kyiv in 1919 to a devastating sexual relationship in 1980s East Berlin, our longlisted books offer stunning evocations of place and time. Here are voices that reflect original angles of observation. In compelling, at times lyrical modes of expression, they tell stories that give us insight into – among other things – the ways political power drives our lives.
I’ve always looked to fiction as a way to inhabit other places, other sensibilities. And through my experience of interviewing international authors I have come to marvel at the ability of translators to expand those worlds, to deepen our understanding of different cultures, and to build a global community of readers not constricted by borders. That same excitement informed the discussions with my fellow panellists since last summer. It’s stimulating to hear about a book that’s been read from a different perspective and presented in a most articulate way. As William Kentridge put it, we are looking to be “complicit in the making of the meaning of a book”.
What my fellow jurors and I hoped to find are books that, together, we could recommend to English-speaking readers. After narrowing down 149 submitted titles to these 13, we are delighted to say, “Here, we’ve scoured the world and brought back these gifts.”
The prize awards £25,000 to the author and £25,000 to the translator, in recognition of the essential work of translators in bringing fiction to a wider audience. I need to read more translated fiction, so will be keen to investigate these titles further.
The shortlist of 6 titles will be announced on 9 April and the winner on 21 May 2024.
Australia is obsessed with property. Whenever people gather, conversations inevitably turn to the cost of housing and the rental crisis. The great Australian dream is a quarter acre block, and given our low population density, one might expect there is plenty of room for everyone to have a roof over their head. Unfortunately, this has not occurred and there is a great divide between those who have a home, and those who do not.
In his Quarterly Essay (QE92) The Great Divide - Australia's Housing Mess and How to Fix It, economist Alan Kohler explores how we ended up here and possible pathways out. Once upon a time, the cost of housing kept up with wage growth. In the 1950s people would have paid about 3.5x the average household income for a home, whereas now it is more like 7-8x.
Kohler argues that the problem is that housing has 'been turned into speculative investment assets by the fifty years of government policy failure, financialisation and greed that resulted in exploding house prices' (p5). Kohler identifies a supply problem, with insufficient public housing from the 1960s, the lack of medium density housing within close proximity to the urban centres, and the federal/state/local divide on who controls development. While supply has dwindled, demand has grown with Howard government policies giving first home owners grants and cutting capital gains tax.
It is essential that we fix this problem. Homelessness is on the rise and the lack of public housing is horrific. Mortgage stress is significant, and many families who purchased during the pandemic with a low fixed rate, will find themselves in trouble when the fixed rate ends in coming months.
Kohler proposes several solutions to fix this crisis. He looks at addressing negative gearing, link immigration policy to infrastructure development, decentralising housing, building high speed rail to allow for commuters, and more. But he acknowledges that political leadership is needed to make unpopular but necessary decisions.
I'm a mortgage holder in Sydney, the second most expensive place to buy property on earth where the median price house is well over $1M. If I were to sell my apartment, what I would be able to purchase next would likely be smaller, and farther away from the city. Reading Kohler's essay, I realised that I am a YIMBY - Yes in my back yard! I believe that diverse communities are essential and that our cities need to be more European with more medium density dwellings catering for a cross section of society, with access to public transport and services. In NSW I can see the Minns' government making steps in this direction, reclaiming and rezoning land for parks and housing, a step in the right direction.
A man returns to sub-Saharan Africa after twenty six years of exile in America. His homecoming is a journey to find his ill brother, and he meets many strangers along the way who tell him their stories. Taxi drivers, bureaucrats, relatives and others all share tales that fill in the gaps of his absence and the strangeness of being a foreigner in his homeland. The judges write 'Banyam reinvents the novel of return and does so with a mordant wit and a sense of playfulness that keeps you hooked until the very end.'
Effie Black - In Defence of the Act
Jessica Miller is a suicide researcher who secretly thinks it might be a good thing. She questions whether someone has the right to stop another from taking their own life, while her colleagues are focussed on suicide prevention. But as Jessica comes to terms with her own relationships, a single event throws her beliefs into doubt. The judges describe this as a 'hilarious, poignant and uplifting' debut novel. Intriguing perhaps, but not for me.
Alicia Elliott - And Then She Fell
From the outside, Alice has a perfect life. She has a beautiful newborn daughter Dawn, a charming husband Steve, and has just moved into a new home in an affluent part of Toronto. But inside, Alice is struggling. Her mother has just died, she isn't bonding with Dawn, and she is not confiding in Steve. Plus, it doesn't help that she is the only First Nations person in her neighbourhood. The judges call this 'a deep dive into the shattered mind of a postpartum woman.' Elliot is a Mohawk writer based in Brantford Ontario.
Anne Enright - The Wren, The Wren
Nell McDaragh is the grand-daughter of a famous Irish poet, Phil McDaragh, whom she never knew. At age 22 she leaves home to become a writer and starts a relationship with the controlling Felim. Her relationship with her mother, Carmel, is complex and layered with intergenerational trauma. Carmel is unable to connect with people, having been abandoned by her father Phil, who left his terminally ill wife and young family. She also struggles to reconcile a man who write such beautiful verse with his personal behaviour. The judges write 'a psychologically astute examination of family dynamics and the nature of memory. Enright's prose is gorgeous and evocative and scalpel sharp.' Irish author Enright is the author of seven novels including the Booker Prize winning The Gathering (2007) and The Green Road (2016) which was previously shortlisted for the Women's Prize.
Kate Foster - The Maiden
In Edinburgh 1670, Lady Christian is arrested for the murder of her lover, Lord Forrester. The trial is sensational, painting this once respectable woman as an adulteress and killer. Told in alternating narratives of Christian and Violet, a prostitute who also kept company with Lord Forrester. Based on a real case, the judges said 'a confident historical thriller with deep-dive, hot-blooded characters who you are cheerleading on. Cinematic. Gripping. Tense; A total page-turner.' This is Scottish author Foster's first novel. Sounds fascinating.
VV Ganeshananthan - Brotherless Night
In Jafna, 1981, teenage Sashi wants to become a doctor but the Sri Lankan civil war steers her dream on another path as her brothers and friend get caught up in the political crisis. She takes up a role working as a medic at a field hospital for the Tamil Tigers, but as the fighting continues Sashi questions where she stands. The judges said 'visceral, historical, emotional. It is 300 pages of must-read prose.' Author Ganeshananthan is best known for Love Marriage which was longlisted for the Women's Prize in 2009.
Kate Grenville - Restless Dolly Maunder
Born at the end of the 19th Century, Dolly grows up in a poor farming family in rural New South Wales. She searches for independence, at a time when women are overcoming obstacles and forging new paths for themselves. Grenville uses family memories to piece together a life of her grandmother. The judges write that the novel 'follows the life of Dolly, who really is restless. It begins in 1880s in rural Australia, and it follows Dolly's ambitions to live a bigger life than the one she's been given.' I am a big fan of Kate Grenville's work and admire the way she takes snippets of a real life to craft a compelling story, as she did in A Room Made of Leaves (2020). I am keen to read this novel as her book about her mother, One Life (2015), shows that she hails from a line of formidable women. Grenville previously won this prize in 2001 for her novel The Idea of Perfection.
Isabella Hammad - Enter Ghost
Actress Sonia Nasir travels to Haifa to visit her sister Haneen. Sonia has made a life for herself in London, while her sister remained in their homeland commuting to Tel Aviv where she teaches at University. Sonia joins a production of Hamlet in the West Bank, but the production is threatened to be disrupted by war. Can Sonia find a new life for herself in her homeland? The judges write 'How can a production of Hamlet in the West Bank resonate with the residents' existential issues. Enter Ghost is a beautiful, profound meditation on the role of art in our society and our lives.' British-Palestinian author Hammad is known for her previous novel The Parisian (2019),
Claire Kilroy - Soldier Sailor
A woman struggles with the change of her identity that motherhood brings. She is consumed by the cycle of day-to-day parenting and no longer has time for herself. Her marriage is strained, the couple arguing. She has an all-consuming love for her child but doubts her abilities. The judges describe this as 'a beautiful and harrowing novel about what it can feel like to be a first time mother.' Irish author Kilroy is known for her previous novels including Tenderwire and The Devil I Know.
Mirinae Lee - 8 Lives of a Century-Old Trickster
Ms Mook, a resident at the Golden Sunset retirement home, shares her memories and reveals stories spanning decades and nations. She claims to have been a slave, spy, murderer, lover, mother. Could they all be true? Can these roles all belong to the same person? The judges write that this is 'an expansive novel that spans a century, obscuring and illuminating the trickster at its heart.' This is South Korean author Mirinae Lee's debut novel.
Karen Lord - The Blue, Beautiful World
Climate change has transformed the Earth. Watching from afar are other civilisations ready to make contact with humanity. A group of change makers are preparing for first contact, including an inventor, a celebrity and a popstar. The judges said 'quite literally takes a knife to climate change and opens up what humanity if going to look like in the future.' Barbadian author Karen Lord has written other works of science fiction including The Best of All Possible Worlds and The Galaxy Game.
Chetna Maroo - Western Lane
Gopi is a keen squash player who has become obsessed with the sport since her mother died, distracting her from her grief. Trained by her father, she grows distant from her sisters. Maroo's debut novel, Western Lane was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize. The judges said 'One of those exquisite books in which not one word is wasted. It is beautifully written.'
Peace Adzo Medie - Nightbloom
Cousins Selasi and Akorfa share a birthdate and pretty much everything else. But when they become teenagers, one withdraws and changes. Later, as adults, they cross paths again and secrets from long ago surface. This novel explores family, class and discrimination, and the central importance of female friendship. The judges write ' moves like a love story between childhood, female friendship and buried truth; painful, intimate and beautifully written with characters you care for. A jewel of a book'. Medie's previous novel His Only Wife (2020) was well regarded. She holds a PhD in International Affairs and has written non-fiction on the subject.
Megan Nolan - Ordinary Human Failings
London 1990. Tom Hargreaves is working as a reporter when he stumbles on a scoop involving a dead child. Carmel is grieving and lacks a support system. Her family of Irish immigrants face prejudice and are an easy target for the police investigation. The judges describe this as 'the insightful story of a family and the journalist who is trying to force a grisly murder tale out of them.' Megan Nolan is also known for her previous novel Acts of Desperation (2021).
Aube Rey Lescure - River East, River West
Fourteen year old Alva is living in Shanghai in 2007. Her mother is a Caucasian American, but she never knew her Chinese father. Alva struggles when her mother marries Lu Fang, a rich landlord. Lescure is a French-Chinese writer. She has written for many publications, but River East, River West is her debut novel. The judges said 'It's original, it's funny, and it's sometimes heartbreaking as well.'
Pam Williams - A Trace of Sun
Cilla leaves Grenada for the UK, leaving behind her son Raef. Seven years later they are reunited, but still estranged by the years and distance between them. Exploring the long-term emotional impact of family separation, A Trace of Sun is Williams' debut novel, drawing on her own experiences as part of the Windrush generation. The judges called this 'a beautiful and heartbreaking story told over the passage of time, exploring what it means to be a woman and mother'.
My thoughts on the Longlist
This was an exciting list given there was so many surprises. I had expected to see Ann Patchett (Tom Lake), Zadie Smith (The Fraud), Sandra Newman (Julia) on the list, and had really hoped that Charlotte Wood's Stone Yard Devotional would be longlisted. Many of these authors I have not heard of, so I am delighted to be exposed to new writers. I also love that this is a global list with writers from the Caribbean, Palestine, Australia, Ireland, Canada, South Korea and beyond.
Last year's longlist gave me many hours of reading pleasure, so I am hopeful that this year's list will do the same. I have not finished any of these books, but I have just started The Wren, The Wren and I am seeing author Anne Enright at the All About Women festival on 10 March, so will start my exploration there. I am also keen to track down the works by Foster, Grenville, Hammad, Kilroy and Maroo.
If I had to pick a shortlist, I would choose Grenville, Hammad, Enright, Kilroy and Maroo to be among those listed.
The shortlist will be announced on 24 April 2024 and the winner will be revealed on 13 June 2024. Happy reading!
Want more Longlist fun? Here are the judges announcing the longlist.
