Your weekly edit
In the world of the Booker Prizes this week: the best crime fiction nominated for the Booker Prize; we celebrate Women in Translation Month; plus, discover the best of Zadie Smith and J.M. Coetzee
WIT Month: Five women in translation share their must-reads
This August, we’ve been celebrating Women in Translation Month (WIT Month), a key initiative of the WIT movement aimed at addressing the gender imbalance in global literature. What imbalance, you might wonder? Currently, only 36% of books translated into English come from non-European countries, and of these, a mere 31% of these translations are written by women. It’s an alarming statistic.
Here, we turn the spotlight on five remarkable women writers from around the globe, all nominated for this year’s International Booker Prize. In each case, we asked them to recommend books, written in their first languages, that have influenced their own work.
Where to start with Zadie Smith
Zadie Smith has been nominated for the Booker Prize three times, and has appeared on Granta’s list of the Best of Young British Novelists not once, but twice. She has been hailed as the voice of a generation, a modern-day Charles Dickens and an astute chronicler of our times. It’s fair to say she has literary chops.
From the UK to America and Africa, and sometimes beyond, Smith’s novels take readers to the heart of her characters’ daily lives, often focusing on small dramas that have big consequences. And it’s not just fiction where Smith shines; her essays and interviews are as incisive as her novels. But if you want to experience the best of Smith as a writer, it’s her novels that are essential reading. Here, we look at six of her best.
10 of the best crime novels from the Booker Library
In 2010, British academic, author and two-time Booker Prize judge John Sutherland (1999 and 2005) said that submitting a crime novel for the prize was ‘like putting a donkey into the Grand National’. Whether a throwaway quip or an observation on the publishing industry’s prejudices, Sutherland’s comment was likely referencing the long-standing division between so-called ‘literary’ and ‘genre’ fiction, with the latter often dismissed as airport fiction at best – all pace and plot, but supposedly lacking depth.
But those days are, hopefully, behind us. Not only is crime fiction now the most popular genre among book buyers in the UK, according to Nielsen BookData, genre boundaries in fiction have become much more fluid, too. This year alone, two crime-tinged novels – Wild Houses by Colin Barrett and Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner – appear on the longlist. Here, we select 10 books with both suspense and substance, and reveal just why they captured the attention of Booker Prize judges – and why they’ll linger in your own thoughts, too.
Where to start with J.M. Coetzee
South African-born novelist J.M. Coetzee is one of the most dazzling stars in the Booker Prize library: he has been nominated six times (only Salman Rushdie has had more nominations), won twice (in 1983 for Life & Times of Michael K, and in 1999 for Disgrace) – and is one of only five Booker winners to also have won the Nobel Prize in Literature (alongside Nadine Gordimer, Kazuo Ishiguro, William Golding and V.S. Naipaul).
His status is indisputable: Coetzee is regarded as one of the greatest living writers in English. For the last half-century, since his debut novel Dusklands in 1974, he has published a new novel every three or so years; reliably, regularly or – one might say, given the intensity of his vision – relentlessly. But this means that there are now 19 books of his fiction to choose from. If you’re new to Coetzee, here’s where we think you should start.
Less than three weeks to go…
In a just over a couple of weeks’ time, the shortlist for the Booker Prize 2024 will be unveiled. Mark your calendars for the evening of Monday, 16 September, where you can be among the first to find out which of the 13 longlisted titles our judges will include in their final six by joining our livesteam (stay tuned to our website and social accounts for more details, which will follow soon!). In the meantime, why not get to know the longlisted books and authors a little better? You can read our series of interviews with each author on the Booker Prizes website, as well as exploring extracts from each book. You can also take our personality quiz to find out which book is perfect for you, and take part in our Reading Challenge. The winner of this year’s Booker Prize will be announced on Tuesday, 12 November.
We’d love to know your predictions for the shortlist and to hear about the books you couldn’t put down (so far!), and why. Let us know in the comments below…
Love Orbital - it’s very beautiful
Treasure House 💎💕📚💕💎