OThe nominees for the edition of the prize, which distinguishes a literary work translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, are the Catalan Eva Baltasar, with “Boulder”, the South Korean Cheon Myeong-kwan, with “Whale”, the French Maryse Condé, with “The Gospel According To The New World”, and the Ivorian Armand Gbaka-Brédé (who signs as GauZ’), with “Standing Heavy”.
Also nominated are Bulgarian Georgi Gospodinov, with “Time Shelter”, Norwegian Vigdis Hjorth, with “Is Mother Dead”, Ukrainian Andrei Kurkov, with “Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv”, Frenchman Laurent Mauvignier, for “The Birthday Party “, the German Clemens Meyer, for “While We Were Dreaming”, the Indian Perumal Murugan, for “Pyre”, the Mexican Guadalupe Nettel, with “Still Born”, the Swedish Amanda Svensson, for “A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding “, and the Chinese Zou Jingzhi, with “Ninth Building”.
The selection was made by a jury chaired by writer Leila Slimani and composed of translator Uilleam Blacker, writer Tan Twan Eng, critic Parul Sehgal and Financial Times literary editor Frederick Studemann.
“What was most rewarding about this experience was reading books from around the world, with an extraordinary variety of form and content. Each of the judges has different tastes and that is what we have tried to reflect in this list. It celebrates the variety and diversity of literary production by today, the different ways in which the novel can be seen,” said Slimani, quoted in the statement.
The organization noted that Maryse Condé is the oldest author ever nominated for the award, at age 89, with three writers (GauZ’, Zou Jingzhi and Amanda Svensson) who are nominated with their debut in English.
GauZ’ is a writer, editor and photographer who lived in Paris as an undocumented student, where he also worked as a security guard (a profession he shared in the past with the German Clemens Meyer), before returning to his native Ivory Coast.
The list of finalists for the Booker International Prize will be revealed at the London Book Fair, on April 18, with a prize of five thousand pounds for the books that reach that stage, divided in half for author and translator.
The winning book will be announced on May 23, with a prize of £50,000, also divided equally between author and translator.
None of the nominated works has been published in Portugal, although some authors have books published in Portuguese territory, such as Andrei Kurkov (“Abelhas Cinzentas”, by Porto Editora, in September last year), Guadalupe Nettel (“O Corpo em que Nasci”, by Teodolito, in 2013), Vigdis Hjorth (“Herança”, by Livros do Brasil, in 2021) and Eva Baltasar (“Permafrost”, by Kalandraka, in 2021).
By Maryse Condé, born in Guadalupe, “Eu, Tituba, witch… negra de Salem” is published in Portugal (by Maldoror, last year).
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