New Delhi: Polish author Olga Tokarczuk has won the Man Booker International Prize 2018 for her book Flights, translated to English by Jennifer Croft and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions.
The Man Booker International Prize was started in 2016 to celebrate fiction that has been translated into English from around the world. The prize money of £50,000 is divided equally between the author and the translator.
“Flights,” according to the Man Booker website, “is a novel of linked fragments, from the 17th century to the present day, connected by themes of travel and human anatomy.”
We’re delighted to announce that our #MBI2018 winner is Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by @jenniferlcroft and published by @FitzcarraldoEds! Read more here: https://t.co/64tnsamKpo #FinestFiction pic.twitter.com/kXuVvreTwj
— Man Booker Prize (@ManBookerPrize) May 22, 2018
According to The Guardian, “A public intellectual, activist and vocal critic of Poland’s increasingly rightwing politics, Tokarczuk’s opinions have occasionally outraged some in her home country.”
Lisa Appignanesi, who chaired the judges’ panel, called Tokarczuk “a writer of wonderful wit, imagination and literary panache”, BBC reported.
“We loved the voice of the narrative – it’s one that moves from wit and gleeful mischief to real emotional texture and has the ability to create character very quickly, with interesting digression and speculation,” The Guardian quoted Appignanesi as saying. “We really felt this is a prize that has an interventionist quality – it allows writers to be better known in Britain, and in the English language, than they have been previously.”
The winning book was selected by a six-judge panel from 108 submissions. The shortlist also included Spanish author Antonio Muñoz Molina, Iraq’s Ahmed Saadawi and France’s Virginie Despentes.