Desk Report
Publish: 06 Nov 2021, 11:36 pm
Booker Prize Winner To Be Announced from Diverse Shortlist || Photo: Collected
The
winner of Britain's prestigious Booker Prize will be announced Wednesday from a
diverse shortlist of novels covering topics from South African apartheid to female
pilots and social media, reports AFP.
This
year's finalists vying for the prize at a ceremony in London from 1915 GMT
include books by authors from South Africa, Britain, Sri Lanka and the United
States.
South
African playwright Damon Galgut, 57, is tipped to win with his novel "The
Promise" about a white family with a farm outside Pretoria.
Covering
the late apartheid era through to Jacob Zuma's presidency, the book shows the
family's growing disintegration as the country emerges into democracy.
The
New Yorker called it "remarkable", while South Africa's Sunday Times
said "it's astonishing how much history Galgut packs into this short
novel".
The
prize, whose previous recipients include Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and
Hilary Mantel, is one of the the leading literary awards for novels written in
English.
The
winner receives a $68,000 prize as well as a career-changing boost in
sales and public profile.
Galgut
is one of two previously shortlisted authors, along with US writer Richard
Powers, 64, whose novel "Bewilderment" is about an astrobiologist
struggling to cope with his young son's behavioural problems.
Another
US writer, Patricia Lockwood, 39, was nominated for her debut novel, "No
One Is Talking About This," featuring a 30-something obsessed with social
media who has to deal with a shocking medical diagnosis.
Other
books look back at 20th-century history.
Sri
Lankan writer Anuk Arudpragasam, 33, in his second novel, "A Passage
North", focuses on the traumatic legacy of the country's almost
three-decade civil war that ended in 2009. "The Fortune Men", by
British Somali author Nadifa Mohamed, 40, is based on the true story of a
Somali sailor wrongly convicted of murder in Cardiff's multicultural port in
the 1950s. "Great Circle", by US novelist Maggie Shipstead, 38, tells
the story of a fictional female pilot hoping to fly around the globe
pole-to-pole, interwoven with first-person narrative from a Hollywood starlet
playing her role.
This
year's televised ceremony at the BBC's Broadcasting House in London will be
attended by all the shortlisted authors, after Covid restrictions led to video
appearances last year.
The
ceremony will include a pre-recorded conversation between Camilla, Duchess of
Cornwall and a long-term Booker advocate, and last year's laureate Douglas
Stuart, 45, about how winning the prize for his novel "Shuggie Bain"
has affected his life.
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Topic : Booker Prize Literary award
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