First "Man Booker International Prize" Contenders Announced
Published February 19, 2005
Muriel Spark lives in Italy
ANTONIO TABUCCHI
Antonio Tabucchi was born in Pisa in 1943. His first work of fiction appeared in 1975 and since then he has published over a dozen novels, collections of short stories and theatrical dialogues in a career that has made him one of the most representative of contemporary Italian writers. He is Professor of Portugese language and literature at the University of Genoa and recognised as the leading Italian scholar in this field. He is a specialist on the work of Fernando Pessoa, whom he has translated into Italian.
Antonio Tabucchi lives in Italy
JOHN UPDIKE
John Updike was born in 1932, in Shillington, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Harvard College in 1954, and spent a year in Oxford, England, at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art. From 1955 to 1957 he was a member of the staff of The New Yorker, and since 1957 has lived in Massachusetts. He is the father of four children and the author of over forty books, including collections of short stories, poems, and criticism. His novels have won the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the American Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Rosenthal Award, and the Howells Medal.
John Updike lives in America
A.B. YEHOSHUA
A.B. Yehoshua was born in 1936 in Jerusalem and today lives in Haifa where he isProfessor of Literature at Haifa University. He studied Hebrew literature and philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He has taught at high-school and university levels, and in Paris while living there from 1963 to 1967. Best known as a novelist and playwright, A.B. Yehoshua is among the most widely internationally recognized Israeli authors.
A.B. Yehoshua lives in Israel
- First "Man Booker International Prize" Contenders Announced
- Published: February 19, 2005
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- Section: Books
- Filed Under: Books: News
- Writer: Eric Olsen
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So the Booker people pony up cash for one more useless literary award, a lifetime achievement honor to one of a host of usual suspects. Who cares?
Actually the money will come from the Man group, one of the largest hedge-fund outfits around. These awards are no more 'booker' than a hooker.
I guess this will become a second-chance Nobel Prize
I would say the legitimacy of something like this is taht for most people on earth, the "usual suspects" are hardly household names, even if some are in many quarters, and anything that draws attention to fine literature for the general public can only be a good and worthwhile thing. Just putting this together, I kept saying "Damn, I should read more of these people."
"Most people on earth" don't care and prizes like this aren't going to make them care -- which is fine; there's no reason they should. All awards are just p.r., more than anything; this one is superfluous besides.
but some are influenced and educated by them and that is their value. PR isn't a bad thing, per se.
Well fine -- let's have a "Best Male Writer Past the Age of 60" Award. A "Best Living Female Author Award." A "Best Young Female Writer With the Nicest Can" award. A "Best Novel Sold to Hollywood" award. A "Best Novel That Will Never Be Sold to Hollywood" award. A "Best Non-Fiction Asian Writer Living in America" award. A"Best Writer Who Has Never Been in My Kitchen" award. Then we can all just sit back as people throw out their video games and disconnect their TiVO's and pour into a headlong mad rush to the local B&N, tumbling ass over elbows to get to a classic re-issue of "Henderson the Rain King." Then they'll all go home, read to page 4, put it on their shelf, talk about how great it is at cocktail parties, and we can all be thankful for the enormous boost in literacy. Yeah right.
that was a bit cynical, don't you think Rodney? I vote for the "Best Young Female Writer With the Nicest Can" award.
I vote for A.B.Yehoshua,for the impact of his work.
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/25722)
What a fine list of novelists - one notes the absence of Salman Rushdie.
Finalists I think, will be:
Saul Bellow
Gunther Grass
Doris Lessing
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
John Updike,
For the winner, I propose Senor Marquez
Beautiful book covers, Eric