The International Booker Prize

Also known as the Man Booker International Prize in earlier days, the International Booker Prize is a world-renowned honor in books and literature. It is an acclaimed international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. 

When is booker prize announced?

The much honorary prize was introduced in 2004 in June, which was sponsored by the Man Group until 2015. It is hosted once every two years to honor the body of work of a living author of any nationality, which is either published in English or is generally available in English translation, to reward the “continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage” of the author and is considered as a proud recognition of the writer’s body of work rather than anyone title.

Post-2015, the award became an annual affair that acknowledged and honored a single book of work translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The winner receives a whopping sum of £50,000 as the prize money for lifting the winning title; the money gets divided equally between the author and translator.

A wise approach to spread awareness of the insights, innovations, creativity, imagination, discoveries, pleasures, and joy that spring from great fiction, the Bookers Prize got a helping hand and big support from Crankstart, the charitable foundation of Sir Michael Moritz, and his wife, Harriet Heyman on 1 June 2019. Ever since Crankstart is associated with the wards, it has been known as The Booker Prize and The International Booker Prize.

Going down the lane of history, the Man Booker Prize was open only to writers from the Commonwealth, Ireland, and Zimbabwe; however, with the International Prize, people from all nationalities who had work available in English, including translations, could participate in the award ceremony. 

International booker prize 2022 dates

Talking about this year, the Booker Prize is all set to witness the grandeur of the literary works on 26 May. This year’s shortlisted work, a Hindi language work – the novel “Tomb of Sand” is selected for the prestigious literary prize. It is the Hindi language work of fiction that has been shortlisted for the prize in history. Indeed a proud moment for Geetanjali Shree, the author of the book. 

The novel got a smooth and easy translation from Daisy Rockwell. The book Tomb of Sand will compete with five other novels worldwide that are inclusive of two more titles from Tilted Axis, Shree’s publishing house. The books shortlisted are Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu and translator Tiffany Tsao, and Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park and translator Anton Hur. 

The plot of the Tomb of Sand is around the angst of teenage years, where the protagonist, Ma, tends to look back at her past, which was more of troubled adolescence. 

“Spending the past year in the company of some of the world’s great writers and their equally gifted translators has been a kind of heaven. From the intimate to the epic, the numinous to the profane, the books make up a passionately debated longlist that traces a ring around the world,” as per the Chair of judges Frank Wynne,

Wynne, the first translator to head the prize’s judging panel, has curated this long list of books shortlisted for the award is selected by Wynne, along with four fellow judges: writer and lawyer Petina Gappah; author and academic Merve Emre; writer and comedian Viv Groskop and translator and author Jeremy Tiang.

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Female writers have outdone the job this time as they are leading in the majority of the places on the International Booker prize 2022 shortlist. Geetanjali Shree’s tale of a widow finding a new lease of life to Olga Tokarczuk’s epic is about a man who claimed to be the messiah; there are some masterpieces curated by some amazing women who deserve all the attention and value. Five were written by women out of six books shortlisted for the prestigious translated fiction award. Also, three of the books are translated by women too. 

These six books from different languages result from rigorously going through every page of around 135 books. As per the Chair of Judgment Frank Wynne, all “explore the borders and boundaries of human experience.” Let us witness who will be the international booker prize 2022 winner!