Neither the diverse nationalities of its authors, nor the settings of their novels, can account for the sheer intensity of feeling and intelligence of ideas in this year's lineup
Novel novels … six books that resist generic categories and divert from formal expectations
For some, the shortlist for this year's Man Booker prize will prove a disappointment. It affords few opportunities for sniping about literariness and entertainment, elitism and populism. There have been no stories of infighting, backbiting, horse-trading or the other nefarious activities in which literary judges are said to indulge. They have not settled for safe mediocrity, or the usual suspects. The worst that can be said of this year's judges is that they have been too inclusive, a risible accusation in a supposedly democratic culture.
The Man Booker is, after all, a Commonwealth prize, as well as a British and Irish one, and the shortlist reflects the common wealth of many nations, many imaginations. It registers not only a multicultural world, but its migratory visions: an Irish writer's meditation on an ancient Middle Eastern myth; a Japanese-Canadian writer's linking of kamikaze pilots and 9/11 suicide bombers; the mingling in 19th-century New Zealand of Maori, Scottish, American, Irish and Chinese, drawn by the hope and greed that drives all frontier tales; a Calcutta family wrestling with diasporic American life and ghosts of the old world; a dark tale apparently set in Merrie Olde England, yet concerning deracination and exile; and a girl who leaves a shantytown in Zimbabwe for the false hope of the American Dream in Detroit.
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The Man Booker is, after all, a Commonwealth prize, as well as a British and Irish one, and the shortlist reflects the common wealth of many nations, many imaginations. It registers not only a multicultural world, but its migratory visions: an Irish writer's meditation on an ancient Middle Eastern myth; a Japanese-Canadian writer's linking of kamikaze pilots and 9/11 suicide bombers; the mingling in 19th-century New Zealand of Maori, Scottish, American, Irish and Chinese, drawn by the hope and greed that drives all frontier tales; a Calcutta family wrestling with diasporic American life and ghosts of the old world; a dark tale apparently set in Merrie Olde England, yet concerning deracination and exile; and a girl who leaves a shantytown in Zimbabwe for the false hope of the American Dream in Detroit.
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