David Grossman becomes first Israeli author to win Man Booker

Israeli author David Grossman won the Man Booker International Prize on Wednesday for his novel A Horse Walks Into a Bar. He will share the 50,000 pound (about `41 lakh) award with translator Jessica Cohen. Grossman is the first Israeli writer to win the prize. The book unfolds over the course of a stand-up show during which comedian Dovelah Gee exposes a wound he has been living with for years and the difficult choice he had to make between the two people who were dearest to him. “Thank you all. I’ll cherish this award and this evening,” Grossman said after receiving the prize at a ceremony in Central London. “I thank my wonderful, devoted, translator Jessica Cohen,” he said. Since he started writing in the late 1970s after being fired from public radio following anger over his critical coverage, Grossman has won numerous Israeli and international awards for his writings. His 1986 novel See Under: Love is seen by a number of critics as his masterpiece, delving into the Holocaust and the generation of Jews that followed. Other works have included The Yellow Wind, a prescient, nonfiction look at Israel’s occupation ahead of the first Palestinian intifada that erupted in 1987. His 2008 novel, To the End of the Land, published after the death of his son Uri, contemplates the effects of war while portraying life in Israel. Grossman’s works have been translated into more than 30 languages, and he was also decorated with France’s Chevalier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1998. In 2011, he was part of a group of seven prominent writers from around the world to appeal to the United Nations Security Council to sanction the Syrian government over its actions in the civil war.

PHOTO: AP