Back at the end of July, we introduced you to the 13 authors who made the longlist for the 2011 Man Booker Prize, which honors the year’s best novel from the UK, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. Now, the six-book shortlist has been announced, and it includes a healthy mix of veterans (Julian Barnes, Carol Birch) and newcomers (Stephen Kelman, A.D. Miller). The prize will be awarded on October 18th, which gives us plenty of time to dig into the nominees — although, sadly, Barnes’ The Sense of an Ending won’t be published in the US until January and it’s unclear whether Esi Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues will ever be available stateside. The full Man Booker 2011 shortlist is after the jump.
The longlist of authors competing for the 2011 Man Booker prize was announced yesterday, giving you plenty of time to familiarize yourself with all 13 titles — including work by four first-time novelists — before the winner is revealed at a ceremony on October 18. “We are delighted by the quality and breadth of our longlist, which emerged from an impassioned discussion,” explained Dame Stella Rimington, who is the chair of the five-judge panel and the former director-general of MI5. “The list ranges from the Wild West to multi-ethnic London via post-Cold War Moscow and Bucharest.” According to The Guardian, Alan Hollinghurst, a previous Man Booker prize winner, is “almost certain to become the bookies’ favorite,” but click through to figure out where you want to start your reading.
“Today I’ve made a major decision: I am never going to die. Others will die around me. They will be nullified. Nothing of their personality will remain. The light switch will be turned off.”
It got us thinking about our own favorite beginnings, both recent and classic. Below are some favorites from our bookshelf. Feel free to add your own picks in the comments section.
Best commentary on “post-blackness” considering Obama wasn’t even president when the book was written:
“You would think they’d be used to me by now. I mean don’t they know that after fourteen hundred years the charade of blackness is over? That we blacks, the once eternally hip, the people who were as right now as Greenwich Mean Time, are, as of today, as yesterday as stone tools, the velocipede, and the paper straw all rolled into one? The Negro is now officially human. Everyone, even the British, says so.”
Patrick deWitt’s excellent debut novel, Ablutions, collects the musings of a nameless bartender who fears for his liver and his sanity. Presented as “notes for a novel,” deWitt crafts a second-person narrative that thrusts the reader behind the bar and into the life of a long-suffering boozer. Beginning with sharp depictions of a Hollywood dive’s motley regulars, Ablutions picks up steam as “you” hit the open road in an attempt to escape both patrons and demons. We caught up with deWitt to ask about his novel’s daring form, a potential silver-screen adaptation, and Ablutions‘ horrible smell.
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by Paul Beatty
