‘Weird’ work wins Booker prize
Anna Burns wins with ‘weird’ book that was initially rejected by publishers
THERE were times when she wondered if she’d ever finish writing her book. For four years Anna Burns kept plugging away at Milkman – it was hard going because a lot of the time she was in crippling pain brought on by a botched back operation. And on top of this she was in such dire financial straits she had to resort to living on charity.
And then when she eventually finished the book, her third, it was rejected by several publishers because they found it “too weird”.
But it’s Burns (56) who’s having the last laugh. She recently became the first writer from Northern Ireland to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize, beating stiff competition from the likes of American literary heavyweight Richard Powers and Canadian writer Esi Edugyan, to win the £50 000 (R925 000) award.
For the judges Burns, who was born in Belfast and now lives in East Sussex, England, was a unanimous choice.
“None of us has ever read anything like this before,” says Booker chair Kwame Anthony Appiah. “Anna Burns’ utterly distinctive voice challenges conventional thinking and form in surprising and immersive prose.”
While Burns is enjoying all the fanfair she says what’s really nice is being solvent again.
“That’s a huge, huge gift.” MILKMAN: WHY ALL THE BUZZ? It’s a novel about a girl raised in an oppressive society – much like ’70s Belfast, the period in which Burns grew up.
The narrator is an 18-yearold, known only as “middle sister”, a daydreamer who loves reading and is preyed upon by a creepy 41-year-old soldier known as Milkman, who’s possibly a terrorist.
“It’s a story of brutality, sexual encroachment and resistance threaded with mordant humour,” Appiah says.
It’s a bit like Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. But it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea because it’s written with few paragraph breaks and eschews character names in favour of descriptions such as “milkman”.