Sexy does it for 2023 International Booker

A novel by an Ivorian author is among the six books that have been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2023.

Translated by Frank Wynne and published by MacLehose Press in 2022, Standing Heavy written by GauZ’ is a unique insight into everything that passes under a security guard’s gaze, which also serves as a searingly witty deconstruction of colonial legacies and capitalist consumption.

Amidst the political bickering of the inhabitants of the Residence for Students from Côte d’Ivoire, and the ever-changing landscape of French immigration policy, two generations of Ivoirians attempt to make their way as undocumented workers, taking shifts as security guards at a flour mill. This sharply satirical yet poignant tale draws on the author’s own experiences as an undocumented student in Paris. 

The panel of judges describe GauZ’s novel as “a sharp and satirical take on the legacies of French colonial history and life in Paris today.”

GauZ’ is the editor-in-chief of a satirical economic newspaper, and has also written screenplays and documentary films.

The other titles on the shortlist are Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches; Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim; The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox; Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel; and Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey. 

The winning title will be announced at a ceremony at Sky Garden in London on May 23.

The prestigious International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. Novels and collections of short stories are both eligible.

The vital work of translators is celebrated, with the £50,000 (Shs233.9m) prize money divided equally between the author and translator. There will be a prize of £5,000 (Shs23.4m) for each of the shortlisted titles—£2,500 (about Shs12m) for the author and £2,500 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators).

The panel of judges is chaired by the prize-winning French-Moroccan novelist, Leïla Slimani. The panel also includes Uilleam Blacker, one of Britain’s leading literary translators from Ukraine; Tan Twan Eng, the Booker-shortlisted Malaysian novelist; Parul Sehgal, staff writer and critic at the New Yorker; and Frederick Studemann, Literary editor of the Financial Times.  
We bring you the bios of the shortlisted books below:

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel
Nettel’s (pictured right) gripping and insightful fourth novel explores one of life’s most consequential decisions—whether or not to have children.

Alina and Laura are independent and career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom has built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilised, but as time goes by, Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. 

When complications arise in Alina’s pregnancy and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions. 

The judges describe Still Born’s plot as “twisty, enveloping.” The novel, they add, “poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, and dependence.” 

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov
Famed as a ‘clinic for the past’, Time Shelter offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers. Each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.
An unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past. These range from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons, right to scents, and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter.’ Their hope is to escape the horrors of modern life.
The judges described the novel’s body of work as “wide-ranging, thought-provoking, macabre and humorous.”

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé
It is about a miracle baby who is rumoured to be the child of God. Award-winning Caribbean author Condé (pictured) follows his journey in search of his origins and mission.

Baby Pascal is strikingly beautiful, brown in complexion, with grey-green eyes like the sea. But where does he come from? Is he really the child of God? So goes the rumour, and many signs throughout his life will cause this theory to gain ground.  From journey to journey, and from one community to another, Pascal sets off in search of his origins, trying to understand the meaning of his mission. Will he be able to change the fate of humanity? And what will the New World Gospel reveal? The book, the judges opine, “succeeds in mixing humour with poetry, and depth with lightness.”

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan
An adventure-satire of epic proportions, Whale sheds new light on the changes Korea experienced in its rapid transition from pre-modern to post-modern society.
Set in a remote village in South Korea, it follows the lives of three linked characters—Geumbok, an extremely ambitious woman who has been chasing an indescribable thrill ever since she first saw a whale crest in the ocean; her mute daughter, Chunhui, who communicates with elephants; and a one-eyed woman who controls honeybees with a whistle. 
The judges describe it as “a carnivalesque fairy tale that celebrates independence and enterprise.”

Boulder by Eva Baltasar
Baltasar demonstrates her pre-eminence as a chronicler of queer voices, navigating a hostile world in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga.
Working as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, who gives her the nickname ‘Boulder.’ When the couple decide to move to Reykjavik together, Samsa announces that she wants to have a child. She is already 40 and can’t bear to let the opportunity pass her by.  
Boulder is less enthused but doesn’t know how to say no. Later, with motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie. Will her yearning for freedom trump her yearning for love?

Described as “a sensuous, sexy, intense book” by the judges, Boulder teems with exhilarating prose in its slightly over 100 pages. 

Judge speaks out...about the shortlist
‘‘I think I speak for the whole jury when I say I am proud of this list. I think it’s a very cool, very sexy list. We wanted each book to feel like an astonishment and to stand on its own,” Leïla Slimani says. 

Slimani adds: “These books are all bold, subversive, nicely perverse. There is something sneaky about a lot of them. I also feel that these are sensual books, where the question of the body is important. What is it like to have a body? How do you write about the experience of the body?

These are not abstract or theoretical books, but on the contrary, very grounded books, about people, places, moments. All these authors also question the narrative and what it means to write a novel today.