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In the world of the Booker Prizes this week: Esi Edugyan on judging this year's prize; celebrating Bernice Rubens' centenary; we revisit A Green Equinox; win the IBP shortlist and a Lomography camera
Watch Esi Edugyan discuss judging the Booker Prize 2023
‘Each book is a marvel,’ said Esi Edugyan, the author and Chair of the Booker Prize 2023 judges, when we sat down with her recently to chat about this year’s prize. ‘We came up with a list that we really felt was the representation of the best writing that’s being produced today,’ Edugyan added, reflecting how the panel chose their Booker Dozen.
Here, in our latest video, Edugyan takes readers behind the curtain and reveals the life-changing effects of being twice-nominated for the Booker herself, and how that prepared her for what was to come in the judging room.
The Booker Prize Podcast: Bernice Rubens – the first woman to win the Booker Prize
In 1970, when the Booker Prize was still in its infancy (its second year running, in fact), the prize was awarded to Bernice Rubens. Rubens was the first woman to win the award with The Elected Member, and is still the only Welsh person to ever win the prize.
2023 marks the centenary of Rubens’ birth, so this week, our hosts Jo Hamya and James Walton take a closer look at her Booker Prize-winning novel – a piercing story that explores what happens to a respectable, close-knit Jewish family when their talented son becomes a middle-aged drug addict.
Lucy Scholes on why Elizabeth Mavor’s work is ripe for revival
Some of the more intriguing volumes on the Booker Library’s shelves are the ones that have, over the years, fallen out of print. One of these is Elizabeth Mavor’s A Green Equinox. Shortlisted in 1973, today it’s a relative unknown compared to the novels it was up against: Beryl Bainbridge’s The Dressmaker, Iris Murdoch’s The Black Prince, and that year’s winner, J. G. Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur. Hopefully though, Mavor’s novel is about to reach new readers. Fifty years after it was first published, A Green Equinox is being rereleased this September, by McNally Editions in the US and as a Virago Modern Classic in the UK.
Given how neglected Mavor’s reputation is today, it might come as a surprise to learn that when she made the Booker shortlist she was 46 years old and the author of three previous novels and two biographies; all of which had been very well received.
Win this year's International Booker Prize shortlist and a La Sardina camera from Lomography
We have teamed up with Lomography to offer you a chance to win the 2023 International Booker Prize shortlist – and a La Sardina camera.
To enter, we’re asking you to share your favourite analogue photos that evoke the theme ‘memories of the past’, in the spirit of this year’s International Booker Prize winner, Time Shelter. Written by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel, the prize-winning novel is partly set in a clinic that recreates the past and brims with nostalgia. The photo you submit can be a special personal memory, or an image that has a vintage aesthetic.
The first prize is a bundle of shortlisted books and a La Sardina camera, with the runner-up prize being a 20% discount code for Lomography’s online shop. This competition is open until September 7th, 2023. Good luck!
And finally…
The shortlist of the six books in the running for this year’s Booker Prize will be announced at the newly re-opened National Portrait Gallery in London on September 21, with the winning title announced at an event at Old Billingsgate, London, on November 26. The shortlist announcement will be live-streamed from 7.45pm (BST) on all of our social channels. See you there!