I know that the Booker is "awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of either the Commonwealth of Nations or the Republic of Ireland" but it is still interesting to note that 3 of the names in this years list, highlighted by me below, sound like of Indian/Pakistani origin.
- Darkmans by Nicola Barker (4th Estate)
- Self Help by Edward Docx (Picador)
- The Gift Of Rain by Tan Twan Eng (Myrmidon)
- The Gathering by Anne Enright (Jonathan Cape)
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Hamish Hamilton)
- The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies (Sceptre)
- Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (John Murray)
- Gifted by Nikita Lalwani (Viking)
- On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape)
- What Was Lost by Catherine O’Flynn (Tindal Street)
- Consolation by Michael Redhill (William Heinemann)
- Animal’s People by Indra Sinha (Simon & Schuster)
- Winnie & Wolf by A.N.Wilson (Hutchinson)
Booker trivia: Beryl Bainbridge has been nominated twice in the 1970s and three times in the 1990s but has never won the Booker prize. Nobel laureate, J. M. Coetzee, on the other hand, has been nominated twice and won both times. Margaret Atwood has also been nominated five times but won in 2000, while Iris Murdoch is the only 6-time nominee, with a solitary win on her 4th nomination in 1978.
* I am a big fan of McEwan....having read couple of his books - the Booker prize winning Amsterdam and The Comfort of Strangers - in the last year. Also started but didn't read much of Saturday and Black Dogs. Will have to check out this latest nomination - On Chesil Beach - some day... but next on my to-read list is his previously Booker-nominated, Atonement. Another very good recent author whose novels I have unfortunately not read so far is Kazuo Ishiguro (though I did see the movie, Remains of the day, based on his novel of the same name.
No comments:
Post a Comment