I år fikk jeg endelig med meg at det ikke bare var en «vanlig» Booker, men også en internasjonal som etter det jeg forstår har fått en del endringer i år. Langlisten ble lagt ut den 10 mars og jeg har lest 2 ( holder på med den 3 )av de 13 bøkene som var der.

 

ÅRETS KORTLISTE!

 

 

A general theory of oblivion av  José Eduardo Agualusa – a wild patchwork of a novel that tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence. For the next 30 years she lives off vegetables and pigeons, and burns her furniture to stay warm. But the outside world seeps in, through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot. Until one day she meets Sabalu, a young boy from the street who climbs up to her terrace.

Denne har jeg ikke lest ennå, men Elida har skrevet om boken her.

 

The story of the lost child av Elene ferrante –The fourth and final instalment of the Neapolitan Novels series,The Story of the Lost Child is the dazzling saga of the friendship between two women: brilliant, bookish Elena and fiery, uncontainable Lila. Both women fought to escape the neighbourhood in which they grew up: a prison of conformity, violence, and inviolable taboos. Having moved to Florence, started a family, and published several well-received books, Elena returns to be with the man she has always loved. Lila, on the other hand, never succeeded in freeing herself from Naples. Her entrepreneurial success draws her into closer proximity to the nepotism, chauvinism, and criminal violence that infect her neighbourhood; she becomes the unacknowledged leader of the world she has always rejected. Against the backdrop of a Naples that is as seductive as it is perilous and a world undergoing epochal change, this story of a lifelong friendship is told with unmatched honesty.

Den fjerde boken i Napoli-kvartetten, og  skal selvfølgelig leses. Har lest den første boken og har de to neste på lur 🙂

 

The Vegetarian av Han Kang – Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, commits a shocking act of subversion. As her rebellion manifests in ever more bizarre and frightening forms, Yeong-hye spirals further and further into her fantasies of abandoning her fleshly prison and becoming – impossibly, ecstatically – a tree. Fraught, disturbing, and beautiful, The Vegetarian is a novel about modern day South Korea, but also a novel about shame, desire, and our faltering attempts to understand others, from one imprisoned body to another. 

Denne boken holder jeg på med og omtale kommer når den er lest ferdig, Elida har skrevet om boken her.

 

A strangeness in my mind av Orhan Pamuk – A Strangeness in My Mind is the story of boza seller Mevlut, the woman to whom he wrote three years’ worth of love letters, and their life in Istanbul. In the four decades between 1969 and 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt and cooked rice to guarding a car park. He observes many different kinds of people thronging the streets, he watches most of the city get demolished and re-built, and he sees migrants from Anatolia making a fortune; at the same time, he witnesses all of the transformative moments, political clashes, and military coups that shape the country. He always wonders what it is that separates him from everyone else – the source of that strangeness in his mind. But he never stops selling boza during winter evenings and trying to understand who his beloved really is. What matters more in love: what we wish for, or what our fate has in store? Do our choices dictate whether we will be happy or not, or are these things determined by forces beyond our control?

 

A whole life av Robert Seethaler – Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn’t ask for her hand in marriage but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain. When Marie dies in an avalanche, pregnant with their first child, Andreas’s heart is broken. He leaves his valley just once more, to fight in WWII – where he is taken prisoner in the Caucasus – and returns to find that modernity has reached his remote haven.

Denne blir sammenlignet med Stoner av John Williams og Togdrømmer av Denis Johnson som jeg nevnte i min omtale av boken.

Elida har skrevet om boken her, og min omtale finner du her.

Boken kommer ut på norsk til høsten – det er bare å glede seg for de av dere som ikke har lest den!

 

The four books av Yan Lianke –In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician are undergoing Re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal and credentials. In charge of this process is the Child, who delights in draconian rules, monitoring behaviour and confiscating treasured books. The inmates – and hundreds of intellectuals just like them – must meet challenges set by the higher-ups: to grow an ever-spiralling amount of wheat, and to smelt vast quantities of steel. The stakes are high: they can win their freedom if they are awarded enough of the small red blossoms. Medium red blossoms and pentagonal stars are given out for effort, obedience, and informing on others. But when bad weather arrives, followed by the ‘three bitter years’ of The Great Famine, the intellectuals are abandoned by the regime and left on their own to survive. Divided into four narratives, echoing the texts of Confucianism and the four Gospels of the New Testament,The Four Books tells the story of one of China’s most controversial periods. It shows us the power of camaraderie, love and faith against oppression and the darkest odds. 

 

Jeg har lest 1 av de på denne listen og holder på med bok nr 2- jeg har planer om å lese de andre også etter hvert men vet ikke hvor mange jeg rekker å lese før vinneren blir kåret den 16. mai.

Har du lest eller noen planer om å lese noen av bøkene på listen?

 

Elida har også skrevet et fint innlegg om kortlisten!

 

 

 

HILSEN BEATHE