/ 10 September 2013

Zimbabwe’s NoViolet Bulawayo shortlisted for Man Booker Prize

Zimbabwe's Noviolet Bulawayo Shortlisted For Man Booker Prize

Six tales from gold-rush New Zealand to Zimbabwe to the English countryside and elsewhere on the planet were shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker prize, organisers said on Tuesday. 

Two-time Booker nominee and Irish writer Colm Toibin headed a list which also included English writer Jim Crace, Zimbabwe's NoViolet Bulawayo, New Zealander Eleanor Catton, Indian/American author Jhumpa Lahiri and Canada's Ruth Ozeki. "Global in its reach, this exceptional shortlist demonstrates the vitality and range of the contemporary novel at its finest," judging panel chair Robert Macfarlane said. 

The 58-year-old Toibin was nominated for The Testament of Mary, the story of a woman who has lost her son in a cataclysmic event that leads to an overpowering grief. 

Crace's Harvest tells the tale of outsiders arriving at a village in late summer before a fire at the local manor house leads to punishment, suspicion of witchcraft and something darker at the heart of the story. 

It is the first time each of the four female writers have been nominated for the prize. They count among them a Buddhist priest (Ozeki), a member of US President Barack Obama's committee on the arts and humanities (Lahiri) and the first Zimbabwean writer to make the shortlist (Bulawayo). Eleanor Catton, who will be 28 at the time of the winner announcement, is the youngest on the shortlist. 

Winner announcement
Macfarlane, an academic, writer and critic said at the press conference to announce the shortlist that the judging panel searched carefully to find originality.

"We looked hard, it took a long time, it was effortful but we found it," he said. The winner of the $78 600 Man Booker prize will be announced on October 15.

Hilary Mantel wrote herself into the history books last year, becoming the first woman and first Briton to win the coveted Man Booker prize for fiction twice with Bring Up the Bodies, the sequel to her acclaimed Wolf Hall. – Reuters

List of the authors and their titles follows: 

  • NoViolet Bulawayo  We Need New Names (Chatto & Windus)
  • Eleanor Catton       The Luminaries (Granta)
  • Jim Crace               Harvest (Picador)
  • Jhumpa Lahiri        The Lowland (Bloomsbury)
  • Ruth Ozeki             A Tale for the Time Being (Canongate)
  • Colm Toibin           The Testament of Mary (Viking)