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44 Bookers in 25 Words (Each )by Harold Augenbraum

 In light of the October 18th announcement of the 2011 prize, the Review's editors asked Harold Augenbraum, Executive Director of the National Book Foundation, presenter of the U.S. National Book Awards, to provide a bite-sized "take" on each Booker or Man Booker recipient (its sponsorship changed in the 1990s). He responded with precisely 25 words on each and every winner.

His thoughts on Famished Road. 1991 -- The Famished Road by Ben Okri -- Raises the coming-of-age novel to the thrill of epic, candidate for the Great Nigerian Novel. Okri is a worthy successor to Achebe, predecessor to Adichie.

To Fall Twice for the Same Trick (or Déjà Vu) by A. Igoni Barrett

"As I pushed the second leg into my yellow tiger paw boxer shorts, my mobile phone rang. Startled by the shrill of a ringtone I hadn’t selected, I lost my balance and pitched forward. My head struck the edge of the new writing desk, I hit the floor, and just before my mind emptied I said to myself: so this is what it feels like to die with your pants down.When I awoke the first thing that strolled up and muttered “hello” was the pong of clinical iodine. I opened my eyes to find that my nose, too, had turned traitor: I was sprawled at the foot of the new writing desk. I reached forward to pull myself up, and grasped a leg, which, after I whipped up my head to look, became in my hand the leg of the new writing desk.The floor was cold; My head hammered; The phone rang."

Tolu Ogunlesi on the Jaipur Literary Festival and literature in India

"Jaipur stands out for the prominence it gives to literature in local languages; as many as half of the fair’s guest writers write in Indian languages. This may also account for the popularity of the festival, in a country where the number of speakers of Hindi, a local language, is 4 times the English-speaking population, and where as many as 22 local languages each have more than 1 million speakers."

The 9th Issue of ITCH Online
The 9th issue of ITCH  Online features a variety of multimedia works exploring the notion of ∞ (the mathematical symbol for infinity).Poetry, prose, video artworks, graphics, drawings, photography and more dig into the corners and stretch out the sides of this sign of intertwined forever-ness.

Have a great week!

Man Booker Prize 2011: Julian Barnes Wins

Julian Barnes has been declared winner of the Man Booker Prize 2011 with his novel The Sense of an Ending (Jonathan Cape - Random House). 

Barnes has claimed that the Man Booker process "usually produces some psychosomatic malady - a throbbing boil, a burning wire of neuralgia, the prod of gout" in the writer. Abeg get me one big dictionary ;) This should encourage one to keep going! This is the fourth time Barnes work would appear on the long list. 

Here are some quotes from his works and interviews:

“It’s easy to read the book innocently, trusting the narrator, believing his account of things, and letting yourself be carried along as by an unthreatening breeze. Maupassant is often called ‘a natural storyteller’: that’s to say, a professional, practised, unnatural storyteller.” (On We Sail in the London Review of Books)

"And sometimes the nature of the writer's oeuvre creates a problem of choice ... Should you choose one of those previously unopened? Or go for one you suspect you misread, or undervalued, at the time? Or one, like Couples, which you might have read for somewhat non-literary reasons?" (The Guardian)

“Books say: She did this because. Life says: She did this. Books are where things are explained to you; life is where things aren't. I'm not surprised some people prefer books. Books make sense of life. The only problem is that the lives they make sense of are other people's lives, never your own.” (Flaubert’s Parrot)

“He talked about the myth of the writer and how it was not just the reader who became trapped in the myth but sometimes the writer as well – in which case we should feel pity rather than blame. He thought about what hating a writer might mean. How fast and how long do we punish thought-crime? He quoted Auden on time pardoning Kipling for his views – “And will pardon Paul Claudel / Pardon him for writing well.” (Homage to Hemingway, New Yorker)

“It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to them.” (Flaubert’s Parrot)

“How often do we tell our own life story? How often do we adjust, embellish, make sly cuts? And the longer life goes on, the fewer are those around to challenge our account, to remind us that our life is not our life, merely the story we have told about our life. Told to others, but - mainly - to ourselves.” (The Sense of an Ending)

Hillary Mantel Wins Man Booker

Hilary Mantel is the winner of the 50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for Wolf Hall, published by Fourth Estate.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel was picked from a shortlist that included novels by A.S. Byatt, J.M. Coetzee, Adam Foulds, Simon Mawer and Sarah Waters.

Hilary Mantel's eleventh novel has been the bookies' favourite since the longlist was announced in July 2009. She is the first favourite to win the prize since Life of Pi by Yann Martel won in 2002 and went on to sell over a million copies.

Go here for more.

On the Man Booker...

For all those who don't know yet, the Man Booker prize shortlist has been released. And those who made it are:

A S Byatt The Children's Book (Random House, Chatto and Windus)

J M Coetzee Summertime (Random House, Harvill Secker)

Adam Foulds The Quickening Maze (Random House, Jonathan Cape)

Hilary Mantel Wolf Hall (HarperCollins, Fourth Estate)

Simon Mawer The Glass Room (Little, Brown)

Sarah Waters The Little Stranger (Little, Brown, Virago)

Click here for more information and here for an opportunity to win prizes from Faber&Faber. It may just be your lucky day, who knows?

Man Booker Longlist

Man Booker Prize released the longlist which includes Summertime by J.M. Coetzee, who is one of only two novelists to have won the Booker Prize twice with Life & Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999.

William Trevor, previously shortlisted four times for the annual prize, is longlisted for his new novel Love and Summer.

Read more here.

However, I wonder when an African publishing house would make that list; though we say value should not be judged by awards but I really can't help but wonder...as our books that have even won international acclaim were first published abroad. Is it possible to find our way to this list or am I just dreaming?