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‘Your Absence is Darkness’ by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Review)
Well, the International Booker Prize longlist has been announced, and we in the Shadow Panel are underway with our reading (or waiting for books to arrive in the post). Of course, with the longlist...
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IBP 2024 Round Up – Reviews One & Two
While it’s early days in this International Booker Prize season, I’ve already been rather busy on the blog. After announcing this year’s Shadow Panel, and then subjecting you to my laughable...
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IBP 2024 Round Up – Reviews Three and Four
Last time around, we enjoyed the first two legs of this year’s International Booker Prize vicarious trip around the world, with stops in (East) Germany and (South) Korea. The journey continues today...
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‘Simpatía’ by Rodrigo Blanco Calderón (Review – IBP 2024, Number Five)
Well, it’s taken a while, but I’m finally ready to embark on reviewing the rest of the International Booker Prize longlist. This will probably be a slow process, given the logistics of sourcing all...
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‘Landscape with Landscape’ by Gerald Murane (Review)
My Gerald Murnane phase last year, which produced reviews of his poetry, his short fiction and even a work on the writer, happened to coincide with a sale by Giramondo Publishing, which I took full...
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‘What I’d Rather Not Think About’ by Jente Posthuma (Review – IBP 2024,...
After a shaggy-dog story down in South America, we’re off to Europe for the next leg of our International Booker Prize journey, where we’ll be getting involved in a family drama. Relationships between...
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‘Cannibals’ by Shinya Tanaka (Review)
Prizes aren’t everything, but they can be a good indicator of a book’s quality, and one of my favourite overseas awards is the prestigious Akutagawa Prize handed out in Japan. Announced twice a year...
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March 2024 Wrap-Up
As expected, March was dominated by preparations for the announcement of the International Booker Prize longlist, and then by the inevitable aftermath (including our Shadow Panel’s take on it all)....
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‘Undiscovered’ by Gabriela Wiener (Review – IBP 2024, Number Seven)
Leaving our bereft twin behind in Amsterdam, with only her partner (and a ton of sweaters) for company, we now turn our attention to Peru, and Spain, on the next leg of our International Booker Prize...
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‘Vladivostok Circus’ by Elisa Shua Dusapin (Review)
Last week I covered a book I thought might have graced the International Booker Prize longlist, and today’s choice is another work that is probably a little unlucky to have missed out. It’s by a...
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‘White Nights’ by Urszula Honek (Review – IBP 2024, Number Eight)
From cultural musings in the Spanish capital (via Peru), we now head to the Polish countryside, where we’ll be spending a while on the latest leg of our International Booker Prize longlist journey....
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‘Crooked Plow’ by Itamar Vieira Junior (Review – IBP 2024, Number Nine)
Time for yet another intercontinental flight on our International Booker Prize longlist journey as we continue to rack up the air miles. This time we’re swapping rural Poland for a plantation in...
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The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist!
For years now, the gap between the announcement of the International Booker Prize longlist and the day the shortlist is revealed has been diminishing, and this year marks a new high/low, with the...
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‘Patterns of the Heart and Other Stories’ by Ch’oe Myŏngik (Review)
Books set in North Korea are always intriguing, especially to someone like me with an interest in Korean literature, so when I heard that a collection of stories from one of the country’s classic...
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‘Lost on Me’ by Veronica Raimo (Review – IBP 2024, Number Ten)
After all that hard toil in the Brazilian fields, it’s time for a change of pace on our International Booker Prize longlist travels, so let’s head off to Italy for a slightly more relaxing stay. Our...
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‘Your Utopia’ by Bora Chung (Review)
If you’ve been paying attention to my little blog recently, you may have noticed a trend developing, namely one of switching between books longlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize and some...
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‘The Silver Bone’ by Andrey Kurkov (Review – IBP 2024, Number Eleven)
While it was quite nice to spend a while relaxing in Rome, duty calls, and our next International Booker Prize longlist stop involves slightly more stressful times. We’re heading back to...
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The 2024 International Booker Prize – The Shadow Shortlist
After the International Booker Prize shortlist was released a couple of weeks back, our Shadow Panel announced an intention to publish our own final selection on the 30th of April. However, with the...
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‘The Dawn of the Warrior Age’, translated by Royall Tyler
Those who have heard of translator Royall Tyler are likely to have done so through his translation of The Tale of Genji, but that’s far from his only work. He’s brought a number of classics of...
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‘The Details’ by Ia Genberg (Review – IBP 2024, Number Twelve)
Having narrowly escaped some rather sticky situations in revolutionary-era Kyiv, we’re taking things a little easier on today’s leg of our International Booker Prize longlist travels. We’re off to...
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