Category Archives: Prizes

2020 Booker International Prize – Longlist

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I like to scan prize lists for potential Long Ago and Far Away reads. I’m happy to report that this year’s Booker International Prize nominees include the following historical fiction – four of the five are from off the beaten path:

  • Red Dog by Willem Anker, translated by Michiel Heyns from Afrikaans (Pushkin Press). From the publisher:

At the end of the eighteenth century, a giant strides the Cape Colony frontier. Coenraad de Buys is a legend, a polygamist, a swindler and a big talker; a rebel who fights with Xhosa chieftains against the Boers and British; the fierce patriarch of a sprawling mixed-race family with a veritable tribe of followers; a savage enemy and a loyal ally.

  • The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar, translated by Anonymous from Farsi (Europa Editions) – from the publisher:

Set in Iran in the decade following the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this moving, richly imagined novel is narrated by the ghost of Bahar, a thirteen-year-old girl, whose family is compelled to flee their home in Tehran for a new life in a small village, hoping in this way to preserve both their intellectual freedom and their lives. But they soon find themselves caught up in the post-revolutionary chaos that sweeps across their ancient land and its people. Bahar’s mother, after a tragic loss, will embark on a long, eventful journey in search of meaning in a world swept up in the post-revolutionary madness.

  • The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh from Spanish (Charco Press) – from the publisher:

…charts the adventures of Mrs China Iron, Martín Fierro’s abandoned wife, in her travels across the pampas in a covered wagon with her new-found friend, soon to become lover, a Scottish woman named Liz. While Liz provides China with a sentimental education and schools her in the nefarious ways of the British Empire, their eyes are opened to the wonders of Argentina’s richly diverse flora and fauna, cultures and languages, and to its national struggles.

  • The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin from German (Scribe UK) – from the publisher:

At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian Empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste …

  • Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin from German (Quercus) – From the publisher:

Daniel Kehlmann masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the seventeenth-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. When his father, a miller with a secret interest in alchemy and magic, is found out by the church, Tyll is forced to flee with the baker’s daughter, Nele. They find safety and companionship with a traveling performer, who teaches Tyll his trade. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll, as he travels through a continent devastated by the Thirty Years’ War and encounters along the way a hangman, a fraudulent Jesuit scholar, and the exiled King Frederick and Queen Elizabeth of Bohemia.

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree doesn’t really quite qualify as historical fiction but it still feels like a good fit and one I’d love to add to my TBR pile. It currently has one Amazon review but 221 on Goodreads.

Red Dog (two poor reviews on Amazon but 83 with a respectable 3.6 stars on Goodreads) also intrigues me especially as I am just now finishing up my blog post on Wilber Smith’s Monsoon (coming soon).

See any that interest you?

The Ten Thousand Things – By John Spurling

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The Ten Thousand Things - John Spurling

The Ten Thousand Things – John Spurling

Like all the best historical fiction, reading The Ten Thousand Things, is a tactile immersion into an unfamiliar time and place leaving a lasting impression of an atmosphere and culture.

Looking through this blog I was appalled to find that I never wrote up any notes on this book. I must have read it several years ago and it continues to circle back to me—which is the best of signs. So many otherwise good books are easily forgotten.

Set at the demise of the Yuan Dynasty (14th century China), the story follows Wang Meng as he wanders the land on various personal errands and is gradually drawn into the cataclysmic events of his era.

There is not a lot of action until our refined artist/philosopher becomes a war strategist for a group of rebels and eventually endures the hardship and loss of a siege. But we also experience the complexity of this medieval Chinese society and a deep dive into the philosophical world of Chinese fine arts. As a painter I could almost see the paintings through Spurling’s descriptions.

Here’s an example:

He hung up several more recent vertical paintings which were further developments of his dialogue between fullness and emptiness. The emptiness became gradually more and more beleaguered. The distant mountains grew higher and craggier; the space setting out, as it were, from its home in the foreground—where a scholar, as often as not, sat writing in his study—picked its way from clearing to clearing in a winding upward progress, impeded by rocks and trees, to a grassy slope, a pool below a waterfall, a broad stretch of river, or a field where a man was ploughing. But when the eye reached the top of the painting the high crags which had dominated its ascent seemed to draw aside like curtains to offer a final clear passage to the sky.

Not all the descriptions are this detailed. But can’t you see the work in front of you?

One aspect of particular interest to me, beyond the life of the painters and their artistic philosophy is the tenacity of artists who continue to create while their world is in the midst of upheaval. This is a subject I’ve often thought to explore further.

I cannot comment on the story’s accuracy as I was ignorant of this period beforehand. But, once again, historical fiction serves as a bridge to new curiosity and knowledge. It gives us a place to start.

I was shocked to see that the book—winner of the 2015 Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction—has only 20 reviews on Amazon. Does this mean readers of historical fiction don’t review on Amazon? Goodreads shows 154 ratings. Maybe that’s where they hang out.

Spurling has been writing since age 11. Despite his long career as a playwright and art critic, 44 publishers rejected The Ten Thousand Things. Oops. Their loss.

Highly recommended for a Long Ago and Far Away experience.

You can find reviews of The Ten Thousand Things here and here.

Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction – Longlist:

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I see a pattern. Do you?

  • A God in Every Stone by Kamila Shamsie – England, Turkey, India – WWI
  • Arctic Summer by Damon Galgut – England, Cairo, India – 1912 (unclear from reviews if/how much WWI figures into the story)
  • Mac and Me by Esther Freud – England WWI
  • The Lie by Helen Dunmore – WWI France; Post-WWI Cornwall
  • The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters – 1922 England, Post-WWI
  • Wake by Anna Hope – England Post-WWI
  • The Wake by Paul Kingsnorth – England Post-1066

Observations:

  1. Western writers and readers obviously still can’t get enough of WWI and WWII.
  2. The 1600s remains a popular era.
  3. The context of war is fertile soil for story.

Publishing note: The Wake by Paul Kingsworth appears to have been originally published in 2014 by a crowdsourcing process. See:

http://unbound.co.uk/books/the-wake

Can you guess which just jumped to the top of my TBR list?