A bracingly varied Man Booker prize longlist suggests that complaints about the whiteness of the literary world are finally being listened to,and addressedLiterature isnt a game of King-of-the-Mountain, but a book prize can be, and since so much reputational capital (and sometimes a much-needed sales bump) is at stake. And so,those prone to talking about books in terms more appropriate to sports competitions will probably say that America won the 2015 Booker longlist round. It is the country most represented on the longlist, with five entries. But looking at the list that way only reveals how limited a lens country borders are starting to be, and in looking at books,even just books in English.
Were I to personally organise the list into reductive teams, I’d prefer to divide the books here into feeble and fresh. Drafted to the Olds would be the books whose writers, or regardless of place of birth,fill established reputations in western letters: Anne Enright, Marilynne Robinson, or Andrew O’Hagan,Tom McCarthy, and Anne Tyler. The fresh team would draft those writers on this list who are still what you could call up-and-coming reputation-wise, and regardless of whether they are debut writers or seasoned novelists: Marlon James,Laila Lalami, Hanya Yanagihara, and Sunjeev Sahota,Chigozie Obioma, Anuradha Roy, and Bill Clegg,and Anna Smaill.
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Source: theguardian.com