Montreal’s Novakovich a Man Booker Prize finalist
Nomination for his body of work a ‘total surprise’ for local writer
Montreal writer Josip Novakovich scored a prestigious coup Thursday when it was announced that he is a finalist for the Man Booker International Prize for 2013.
“It was a total surprise,” said Novakovich on his reaction to the news while returning to Montreal from a writing retreat in the Florida Keys.
A popular and active figure in the local literary scene, Novakovich has taught creative writing at Concordia University since 2009. Born in the Croatian part of what was then Yugoslavia, he emigrated to the United States (his mother is American-born) at age 20 in 1976 before coming to Montreal.
The author of novels, and story and essay collections, and a bestselling guide to creative writing, his career has been marked with such distinctions as an American Book Award and a Guggenheim Fellowship; his main subject has been the experience of exile, often given a darkly comic treatment. His newest published work is the 2012 essay collection, Shopping for a New Country.
“Awards in general suck, as they seem to be designed to hurt people who don’t get them,” Novakovich said. “I’ve had a few awards, but none, for example, for my novel April Fool’s Day, which I think is my best book. So they are arbitrary, whimsical, not to be relied on. On the other hand, I seem to have gotten a few just when I needed them most. So they are also great, of course.”
Awarded every odd-numbered year since 2005 and not yet as well-known as the Commonwealth-confined Man Booker Prize, the international version has nonethe- less been growing in profile. It differs from the older prize not only in its global remit, but in its focus: it is awarded not for a single book, but for a body of work.
Not quite a “lifetime achievement” award, it seeks to acknowledge a substantial and ongoing career that may well encompass multiple genres, with a stress on innovation. (Alice Munro, the 2009 winner, is the only Canadian thus far honoured.)
It is rare among major prizes in that publishers don’t submit for it; the jury, chaired by eminent critic and editor Christopher Ricks and grown this year to five members from three, is entrusted with choosing the list itself.
In practice, the Booker International’s writer-driven selection process has made for a more adventurous and experimental flavour, something this year’s list of finalists illustrates well. It’s hard to imagine the standard Booker spotlighting a writer as unconventional as the American translator and micro-fiction practitioner Lydia Davis, some of whose stories have been as short as a few lines.
Probably the best-known name among the nominees is American novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson, past winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Pulitzer Prize and the Orange Prize. Her most recent book is the memoir/essay collection When I Was a Child I Read Books. Romanian-born novelist and Holocaust memoirist Aharon Appelfeld will also be considered a strong candidate.
In addition to Novakovich, Davis, Robinson and Appelfeld, the other finalists are U.R. Ananthamurthy (India), Intizar Husain (Pakistan), Yan Lianke (China), Maria Ndiaye (France), Vladimir Sorokin (Russia) and Peter Stamm (Switzerland). Ndiaye, 45, is the youngest writer to ever make the list.
For Novakovich, the timing of representing Canada is delightful: he officially becomes a landed immigrant Saturday.
“I am glad Canada is finally claiming me,” he said.
“I have lived here for four years, and I have waited for the answer to my application for two years, so it has felt like unreciprocated love — I loved Canada and was not loved back. But now it seems Canadians are glad to have me. Funny how these things are in sync.”
The winner of the Man Book International Prize for 2013, which carries a winner’s purse of $103,000, is announced in a ceremony at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on May 22.