Two-thirds of this year’s shortlisted authors are new to English language readers and have been widely praised for their originality, with the judges writing that the shortlisted books are “revolutionary in form, in content and in point of view.” In a comment to The Guardian, chair of the judges, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, notes that the judges were interested in books that blurred the lines between fiction and nonfiction. — The Booker Prizes (@TheBookerPrizes) April 22, 2021 “Fiction takes many, many different forms, and some of the books came close to being historical writing. Some of them were very essayistic. Some of them seemed deeply personal, almost like memoirs. What we concluded was that this is a fantastically vigorous and vital aspect of the way fiction is being written at the moment, that people are really pushing the boundaries.”
2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist
At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti The shortlist was selected by a panel of five judges: cultural historian and novelist Lucy Hughes-Hallett; journalist and writer Aida Edemariam; Man Booker shortlisted novelist Neel Mukherjee; Professor of the History of Slavery Olivette Otele; and poet, translator, and biographer George Szirtes. And if you’re looking for even more great recommendations for international literature, check out this year’s complete longlist.
