Chapter 17: It's the most wonderful prize(s) of the year!
Let's talk books, book prizes, and recommendations for your International Women's Day reading.
It’s book prize season, baby!
For us very online bookworms, the last two weeks of our Instagram feeds have been full of longlist predictions, reactions to longlists, and photos of newly acquired books from said longlists. It feels like we’re all in a very niche book club. No complaints from me.
In my mind, February 25 kicks off the start of book prize season with the announcement of the International Booker Prize longlist, and earlier this week (just in time for International Women’s Day), the Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist. These happen to be two of my favourite book prizes and the ones I follow the closest.
If you don’t follow book prizes closely, what usually happens is a longlist is announced (around 12-16 books), several weeks later the shortlist is announced (usually 6 books), a few weeks after that, the winner is announced.
A few years ago, I had serious FOMO from other bookstagrammers reading these lists in their entirety, and I made it a goal for myself to read all of the longlisted books for the Women’s Prize and Booker Prize. I over-indexed on literary fiction heavy hitters, and since I was forcing myself to read these in pursuit of a completed checklist, I didn’t enjoy them as much as I would have if I spaced them out, or only read the ones I was interested in. I’m also not a one-book-genre type of gal. I need some thrillers, romance, and non-fiction in there too!
When the International Booker and Women’s Prize longlists were announced, I put one of my 138 notebooks to use and wrote down a bit about each book — how many pages, where I could get the book (library, Libby, Libro.fm, or Kobo), a bit about the plot, the language it’s translated from — and highlighted the ones that sounded the most interesting. These are the ones I’ll read, and I won’t worry too much about the others (unless I’m only a book or two away from when the shortlist is announced, then I may read the others because I can’t help being that close to finishing a list).
I’m going to do a bit of a deeper dive on the International Booker and Women’s Prize, but here are some other literary prizes you may be interested in:
Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction: The Prize is awarded annually and is open to all women writers from across the globe who are published in the UK and writing in English.
Carol Shields Prize for Fiction: English-language literary prize to celebrate creativity and excellence in fiction by women and non-binary writers in Canada and the United States.
Giller Prize: A literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation).
The Booker Prize: The prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best sustained work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction: For distinguished fiction published during the year by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.
(This one is interesting because the finalists and winner are announced at the same time).
International Booker Prize
This prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.
There’s something very special about translated fiction. Some of my favourite books (I WHO HAVE NEVER KNOWN MEN, THE WALL) and authors (Mariana Enriquez, Claudia Piñeiro) are translated literature. There’s something about how authors from around the world write, the layers to their storytelling, the richness of the characters and settings, and how easy it is to be transported that brings an entirely new reading experience for me. There’s something about these stories that are unique in the way they’re told, but feel universal.
Books I’ve heard of: 0 | Books I plan to read: 6
Shortlist announcement: April 8 | Winner announcement: May 20
This was an exciting list; I hadn’t heard of any of these books before, and all of these authors are making their International Booker Prize debut! Here are a few other fun facts from this year’s longlist (from the Booker Prize website):
11 out of the 13 books are under 250 pages (this makes me SO excited because I will be able to read more of them since they aren’t as chunky)
One of the books was first published in Dutch 43 years ago, marking the longest gap between an original-language publication and International Booker Prize longlisting
The first volume in a planned septology, originally self-published before becoming a word-of-mouth phenomenon
Books translated from 10 original languages, including, for the first time, Kannada and Romanian
Authors and translators representing 15 nationalities
11 independent publishers – the highest number ever
After an initial scan, the below few stuck out the most to me. I’ve already read RESERVOIR BITCHES (you can read my review on Instagram here). If this is an indication of what the rest of the list will be like, I’m in for a treat!
SMALL BOAT by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson: In November 2021, an inflatable dinghy carrying migrants from France to the UK capsizes in the Channel, causing the deaths of 27 people on board. How and why did it happen? [France]
EUROTRASH by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles: A jaded writer takes his spiky mother and her ill-gotten wealth on a road trip in this tragicomic and absurd semi-autobiographical novel. [Switzerland]
UNDER THE EYE OF THE BIG BIRD by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda: Speculative fiction about a future where humans are nearing extinction. [Japan]
HUNCHBACK by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton: A very online protagonist with disabilities lives in a care home near Tokyo, and offers her new male carer an indecent proposal after learning he’s read all of her erotica she’s shared online. [Japan]
ON THE CALCULATION OF VOLUME I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland: A groundhog day-style story where Tara Selter has woken up on the 18th of November for the past 365 days. [Denmark]
Also, a shout-out to whoever is leading social media for the Booker Prize. I think it was the most beautiful longlist announcement I’ve seen, and the teases they dropped leading up to the announcement were great.
Women’s Prize for Fiction
The Women’s Prize is awarded annually to the author of the best full-length novel of the year written in English, by a woman, and published in the UK. Books on this list tend to be the most aligned with books I tend to reach for and the ones I enjoy the most. You may recognize some of the previous winners: DEMON COPPERHEAD by Barbara Kingsolver, HAMNET by Maggie O’Farrell, AN AMERICAN MARRIAGE by Tayari Jones, and BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett.
The past few years I’ve attempted to read the shortlists and though I fell short (ha), really loved BLACK BUTTERFLIES by Priscilla Morris, THE ISLAND OF MISSING TREES by Elif Shafak, SORROW AND BLISS by Meg Mason, and BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS by Ruth Ozeki — and I don’t think I would have read these books or had them on my radar if it weren’t for the Women’s Prize.
Books I’ve heard of: 8 | Books I plan to read: 7 | Books I’ve read: 1
Shortlist announcement: April 2 | Winner announcement: June 12
NESTING (a woman taking her young kids and leaving her abusive husband) and THE DREAM HOUSE (a dystopian world where dreams are monitored) were already super high up on my list of new releases I want to read. The others in the photo below were some that stuck out to me that I’d love to read before the shortlist is announced.
AMMA by Saraid de Silva: A family drama about how one event becomes a defining moment for generations.
SOMEWHERE ELSE by Jenni Daiches: A novel about womanhood and Judaeo-Scottish experience across Two World Wars, the creation of Israel and the fall of the Berlin Wall.
BIRDING by Rose Ruane: Two women with wildly different life experiences try to untangle the damaging details of their past in the hope of a better future, but their lives are set on an unlikely collision course.
CROOKED SEEDS by Karen Jennings: A woman’s family home has become the scene of a criminal investigation, and the novel explores themes of national trauma and collective guilt.
THE SAFEKEEP by Yael van der Wouden: An unlikely romance of love and obsession in 1960s Amsterdam.
International Women’s Day
Happy (early) International Women’s Day! Where would we be without women? And especially the women who write great books?
Here are some of my favourite writers and books that I’d recommend to anyone.
I’d love to hear from you: What writers/books are you reading for International Women’s Day? What books would you recommend? I’m finishing both NESTING by Roisin O’Donnell and The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. I’d love to pick up IT LASTS FOREVER AND THEN IT’S OVER by Anne de Marcken.
Until next week,
Rach