When this year's Booker Prize shortlist was announced, the first thing everyone was talking about was: where is Hilary Mantel? The second was: this is not business as usual.
This year's shortlist is notable for featuring four debut novels, and four works by writers of colour, among them Zimbabwean writer Tsitsi Dangarembga, who was arrested in July in Harare for anti-government protests.
The majority of the writers are American or based in America, and despite the Booker being a UK prize, only one British writer made the cut: Douglas Stuart.
Among the novels vying for the 50,000-pound ($AU88,250) prize are an ode to the working-class women of Thatcher-era Glasgow, a tale about Ethiopia's female freedom fighters in the 30s, and a dystopian vision of motherhood and community in an America ravaged by climate change.
There's plenty to sink your teeth into.
To help you navigate the shortlist, we've asked three experts — Claire Nichols and Sarah L'Estrange from ABC RN's The Book Show, and Kate Evans from ABC RN's The Bookshelf — to share their thoughts on each book.
The winner of the Booker Prize will be announced on November 19.
This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga
The main character in this novel, Tambudzai, is best thought of as an anti-hero, although she describes herself as a failure. When we meet her, aged 40, she is unemployed and living in a youth hostel in Harare, Zimbabwe — despite having done well at school and landed a job in advertising. Her life's downward spiral is a source of constant confusion for Tambudzai: the script has not gone to plan.
This Mournable Body is the final in a trilogy that has followed Tambudzai since she was a girl in 1960s and 70s pre-independence Rhodesia (in the novel Nervous Conditions), then into the jubilant independence era of Zimbabwe (The Book of Not). The story picks up in the 90s, when the gloss and promise of independence have worn off, although the physical and emotional scars from the war remain.
Tambudzai's problems can be read as a parallel for the trajectory of the country as a whole; her pain is the pain of her countrymen and women. But the fact that the story follows a woman, not a man, means we also see the duel impacts of racism and sexism on her life. It is a destabilising read, particularly as her disappointments turn to despair, but it is a fascinating insight into how political forces in Zimbabwe affect the daily lives of ordinary people. SL
The New Wilderness by Diane Cook
The New Wilderness begins with an unforgettable scene, as a lone woman gives birth to a dead child in the middle of a wild landscape. We soon learn that the woman is Bea, a former interior decorator who has escaped the polluted City for a precarious new life in the Wilderness State.
The Handmaid's Tale meets Survivor in this compelling piece of speculative fiction, which presents a world catastrophically altered by climate change. Bea and her five-year-old daughter Agnes left the polluted City when the air became too toxic for Agnes to breathe. When we join them, the mother and daughter have spent four years with the Community, an experiment that started with 20 former City-dwellers living off the land in the last remaining area of wilderness.
Four years in, there are only 11 members of the Community left, and as with any group of people, there are annoyances, flirtations and fights. The author, Dianne Cook, is masterful at portraying the crumbling group dynamics in an environment where a moment's inattention can have disastrous consequences. Mother Nature is always ready to strike — with a gushing river, a wild dust storm or circling coyotes just a moment away.
The New Wilderness is a powerful read that asks big questions about humanity itself. You'll be hooked from the first page. CN
The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste
This novel, the first by someone of Ethiopian descent to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize, is set during the Italian invasion of 1935, and highlights the little-known history of the Ethiopian female fighters who defended their country against Mussolini's forces alongside the men.
The story unfolds primarily through the prism of the young servant Hirut, who works in the house of upper-class couple Kidane and Aster. It is made clear that Hirut's life is worth little and will amount to nothing beyond her obligation to serve others. But with the advent of war, she is taken to the frontlines to cook and clean for the soldiers — and it is here that her destiny changes, and she becomes a fighter.
The story also unfolds through vignettes about photographs taken during the war, radio reports, and stories about characters on the Italian side. In this way, the reader is invited to question what version of events makes it into history books. It is a passionate and compelling read about a war whose significance was perhaps lost in the subsequent horrors of World War II. SL
Real Life by Brandon Taylor
Wallace is a twenty-something graduate student completing a biochemistry degree at an unnamed university in the American Midwest. He spends long hours in a lab, meticulously working to breed new strains of nematodes. It's quiet, solitary work, and Wallace seems to carry that solitude with him wherever he goes. When socialising with groups of friends he is distant and uncomfortable, and as a black, queer man, he keenly feels his differences to the people around him.
The book is set over one summer weekend, when Wallace embarks on a new relationship with a fellow student, Miller. The relationship is at times passionate and tender, but also confusing and volatile. Miller insists he's not gay, but aggressively pursues Wallace — who is dealing with demons from his own difficult past.
Real Life is written by debut novelist Brandon Taylor, himself a black, queer, former biochemistry student. Taylor says the first draft of the book, which deals with themes of racism and abuse, was written in just five weeks. For a debut work of fiction, it is remarkably assured and beautifully written. Wallace and his friends are fully-rounded, recognisable characters and Wallace/Taylor's observations about the world around him are fresh and surprising. Real Life is a quietly powerful book that I loved. CN
Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart
This is a novel you can hear as you read it: heavy with Glasgow accents and extravagant with swearing; cursing unemployment and useless husbands and lack of food and a woman who looks at your man the wrong way. It also has a smell, of the dregs of beer and last night's grease, poverty and sadness.
But Agnes Bain, whose life and family is at the centre of the novel, makes sure her home is spick and span, her hair is done and that her own beauty and vivacity is on show. Her life is also shaped by the violence of despair and the furtive drinking of a truly dedicated alcoholic; a husband who has left in his black cab, stranding her in a grim suburb beside a freshly closed mine. This is early-80s Scotland, and Thatcher's new world order.
Agnes's assurance and defiance take effort to maintain, what with the grinding struggle to survive, the judgment of other women and the lure of the drink.
Her youngest son, Shuggie, still adores her, while her other children work out how to escape. His life, too, is not easy — a queer boy in an unforgiving landscape — and it's his view of his mother that also shapes the book. And while the characters and challenges of these people make for a compelling story, it's the texture and tenderness of the writing that make it something exciting and remarkable for a debut novel. KE
Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi
Mothers, daughters and memory are at stake in this sharp-edged novel, whose fluid style slips over and around its spiky edges and barbed asides. It almost reads like a wry, smart memoir — as Antara grapples with her mother Tara's mental decline.
Tara is forgetting things, but she remembers enough to humiliate her adult daughter, driving her mad with everyday irritation. But it's Antara's whole childhood that is at issue here, growing up in Puna, India, where there was nothing 'benign' about the neglect the child experienced. The two of them spent time in an Ashram, with Tara in thrall to a guru — but now, in the present, it's difficult for Antara to express or confront or mediate her rage at these contested memories, when Tara herself is slipping away.
This novel is not simply a tussle between the two women. We meet Antara on her own terms, as she remakes herself away from her upbringing, paring away traces of the things she doesn't want because, she says, "I wanted a home and marriage free of grey, fuzzy edges". Her mother creates those smudged edges though, and she can't escape them — so the story circles back to this complicated, intense relationship; to a present defined by an elusive past. KE
Tune in to ABC Radio National at 10:00am on Mondays for The Book Show and midday Fridays for The Bookshelf.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiX2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIwLTEwLTI0L2Jvb2tlci1wcml6ZS1zaG9ydGxpc3QtbGl0ZXJhdHVyZS1hd2FyZC1yZWFkaW5nLzEyNzgxNDA20gEnaHR0cHM6Ly9hbXAuYWJjLm5ldC5hdS9hcnRpY2xlLzEyNzgxNDA2?oc=5
2020-10-23 14:04:00Z
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