A life in books and why prizes matter
Also this week: the art of rejecting authors and how all the best stories are true.
ByBooker Prize
International Booker winner Georgi Gospodinov: “We’re living in the memory gap”
The Bulgarian novelist on the legacy of communism, the necessity of irony and why remembering is a political act.
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Why we need the Women’s Prize for Non-fiction
We might be tempted to see prizes for women as less necessary with each passing year – but non-fiction is…
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Elif Shafak’s Diary: Solidarity with Iranian women, Instagram anxiety, and a turn at the Booker Prize ceremony
An unexpected link to a schoolgirl killed in Afghanistan is a reminder that we are all citizens of the world.
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Booker winner Shehan Karunatilaka: “You don’t know who you’re going to offend”
The Sri Lankan novelist on growing up amid civil war, turning trauma into satire, and winning the 2022 prize.
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Philip Pullman on the end of the Costa Book Awards: a blow for children’s literature
Children’s writers used to be treated with slovenly contempt. The Whitbread and Costa showed we were worth taking seriously.
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International Booker Prize winner Geetanjali Shree: “Women come into their own when they are older”
The author of Tomb of Sand on writing in Hindi, the politics of daily life, and why “people think English…
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Rowan Williams’s Diary: Judging the Booker Prize, the ethics of climate change, and the birth of our first grandchild
I look forward to telling my grandson his birth was toasted within a few hours alongside the 2021 Booker winner.
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Booker Prize-winner Damon Galgut: “South Africa is not a country that speaks with one voice”
The author on racism in the US, the long legacy of apartheid, and why his writing is not influenced by…
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Richard Powers’s Bewilderment is full of bold ideas – but strays into earnestness
Neuroscience, astrobiology and ecocide mix in the American author’s Booker-shortlisted new novel.
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