Again without Kurkov – Booker Prize 2024 announced the short list

The Booker Prize 2024 announced the shortlist

The Booker Prizes

On Tuesday, April 9, the Booker Prize International announced the shortlist of contenders for the award in 2024. Ukrainian writer Andriy Kurkov and his novel “Samson and Hope”, which was previously on the long list, were eliminated from the list of nominees.

A short list of six editions was published on the award’s official website.

“The shortlist was selected from a longlist of 13 titles announced in March, which was selected from 149 books published in the UK or Ireland between 1 May 2023 and 30 April 2024 and submitted by publishers for the prize“, the organizers of the award reported.

The winner of this year’s Booker Prize will receive 50,000 pounds, which will be split in half with the translator. The award ceremony will take place on May 21. For the first time in history, it will be held in the Turbine Hall of London’s Tate Modern gallery.

Booker organizers noted that this year’s shortlist includes authors from six countries – Argentina, Brazil, Germany, the Netherlands, South Korea and Sweden. Their books are written in six languages ​​- Dutch, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

“Our shortlist, while covertly optimistic, is connected to the contemporary realities of racism and oppression, global violence and environmental catastrophe“, – noted the head of the jury, a Canadian writer and presenter Eleonora Wachtel.

For the second year in a row, Ukrainian writer Andriy Kurkov has failed to make it past the long list. This time, his novel “Samson and Hope” was among the nominees in the longlist of the Booker Prize 2024. Last year, his book “Jimi Hendrix’s Lviv Tour” was selected there – it also did not make it to the shortlist.

Short list of nominees for the Booker Prize 2024:

· Not a River (“Not a river”) Selva Almada (Argentina)

“Selva Almada’s novel is the best expression of her compelling style and unique vision of rural Argentina“, the jury notes.

· Mater 2-10 (“Mater 2-10”) Hwang Seokyeon (South Korea)

“An epic story that spans several generations and ties together centuries of Korean history.”

· What I’d Rather Not Think About (“Things I’d Rather Not Think About”) Gente Postuma (Netherlands)

“A deeply moving exploration of grief, told in short, precise sketches, full of gentle melancholy and unexpected humor“.

· Crooked Plow Itamar Vieira Jr. (Brazil)

“A fascinating story about the life of farmers in the poorest region of Brazil“.

· Kairos (“Kairos”) Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany)

“An intimate and devastating story of two lovers’ journey through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history“.

· The Details (“Details”) Ia Henberg (Sweden)

“In stirring, provocative prose, Iya Henberg reveals a personal and powerful celebration of human existence“.

About the Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize – one of the most prestigious literary prizes. Awarded annually for the best literary works translated into English.

It was awarded for the first time in 1969 – then the prize was won by Percy Howard Newby for the essay “You will have to answer for this”.

Since 2014, works by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in Britain, can apply for it.

In different years, its winners were such famous writers as Iris Murdoch, Salman Rushdie, John Coetzee, Kingsley Amis, Ian McEwan, etc. Five Booker Prize winners – William Golding, Nadine Gordimer, Vidyadhar Surajprasad Naipaul, John Coetzee and Ishiguro Kazuo – later won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 2023, the laureate was the Irish writer Paul Lynch for the novel “Prophet Song”.