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Posts tagged as “Man Booker Prize for Fiction”

Author Paul Beatty Becomes 1st American to Win Man Booker Prize With ‘The Sellout’

By goodblacknews on October 25, 2016
Paul Beatty, who won the Man Booker Prize for “The Sellout,” a satire about race in America, at a ceremony Tuesday in London. (Credit: John Phillips/Getty Images)

article by Alexandra Alter via nytimes.com

Paul Beatty’s novel “The Sellout,” a blistering satire about race in America, won the Man Booker Prize on Tuesday, marking the first time an American writer has won the award.

The five Booker judges, who were unanimous in their decision, cited the novel’s inventive comic approach to the thorny issues of racial identity and injustice.

With its outrageous premise and unabashed skewering of racial stereotypes, “The Sellout” is an audacious choice for the judges, who oversee one of the most prestigious awards in literature.

“The truth is rarely pretty, and this is a book that nails the reader to the cross with cheerful abandon,” Amanda Foreman, the head of the judging panel, said at a press briefing in London before the winner was announced. “It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society.”

At a ceremony in London, Mr. Beatty said that writing “The Sellout” had taken an emotional toll.

“It was a hard book for me to write; I know it’s hard to read,” he said. “I’m just trying to create space for myself. And hopefully that can create space for others.”

A raucous tragicomedy that explores the legacy of slavery and racial and economic inequality in America, the novel felt deeply resonant at a moment when police violence against African-Americans has incited protests around the country and forced Americans to confront the country’s history of racism.

In a review in The New York Times, Dwight Garner wrote that the novel’s first 100 pages read like “the most concussive monologues and interviews of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle wrapped in a satirical yet surprisingly delicate literary and historical sensibility.”

To read full article, go to: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/26/business/media/paul-beatty-wins-man-booker-prize-with-the-sellout.html?_r=0

Jamaican Novelist Marlon James Wins Man Booker Prize

By goodblacknews on October 14, 2015
Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for "A Brief History of Seven Killings" on Tuesday.
Marlon James won the 2015 Man Booker Prize for “A Brief History of Seven Killings” on Tuesday.  (photo via cnn.com)

Marlon James, the Jamaican novelist, has won the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction for “A Brief History of Seven Killings,” his fictional retelling of the 1976 attempted murder of Bob Marley.

James, 44, who now lives in Minneapolis and teaches at Macalester College, is the first Jamaican author to win the prize in the British award’s 47 years. It’s also the first for his publisher, Oneworld Publications.

‘It is a crime novel that moves beyond the world of crime and takes us deep into a recent history we know far too little about. It moves at a terrific pace and will come to be seen as a classic of our times,” said Michael Woods, chairman of the judging committee.

James didn’t expect to wow the critics, but that’s what he did with his 686-page epic novel.

“It’s like a Tarantino remake of ‘The Harder They Come’ but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a script by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner, with maybe a little creative boost from some primo ganja,” wrote Michiko Kakutani in The New York Times.

“It’s epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex. It’s also raw, dense, violent, scalding, darkly comic, exhilarating and exhausting — a testament to Mr. James’s vaulting ambition and prodigious talent.”

James’ other works includes two novels, “John Crow’s Devil” (2005) and “The Book of Night Women” (2009).

Last year, the prize was opened to any novel published in Britain and written in English. In previous years, winners had to come from Britain, Ireland, Zimbabwe and Commonwealth nations.

article by Katia Hetter via cnn.com