Whale: SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023

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Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from Ivoirian by Frank Wynne, is about two generations of Ivoirians trying to make their way as undocumented workers in Paris. Time Shelter, described by our judges as ‘a subversive masterclass in the absurdities of national identity’, tackles the rise of populist movements around the world, warning of the dangers of selective memory, of weaponised nostalgia and of seeking refuge in the past. Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel, is about the opening of a “clinic for the past” that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.

Right now, I can’t stop thinking about a few books I read this month: Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell, for its elegant depiction of horrific violence and the different ways dialogue was handled; Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius, translated by Rachel Wilson-Broyles, for its exploration of trauma and its visceral depiction of the differences between Swedish and Sámi languages and cultures in a third language (English); and How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu for its lyrical depiction of grief and loss and its interlocking narrative structure. Condé and Philcox are the first wife-and-husband author-translator team to be longlisted for the award. In the heat of the summer day, Chunhui stood in the middle of the brickyard in her blue prison uniform, as the sun, closer now to the earth than it had been all year, scorched everything in sight.Translating literature is critical work and if translators hadn’t undertaken that labour, I would have been someone who’d never had the opportunity to read Hemingway or Conan Doyle. When night fell she slept against a gravestone and when she grew hungry she drank from a creek in the valley below to sate herself. Setting aside its literary significance, it was because I felt I would be able to bear it all, no matter how difficult, if I could look at the world through Bukowski’s eyes - if I could arm myself with Bukowski’s gaze to stand up against the world - and be accompanied by alcohol, too. It is a collection of stories about the lives of linked characters in a remote village in South Korea.

But don't be mistaken, this is a dark book, with disturbing scenes and content that is seriously troubling.

Geumbok is a beautiful, strong-willed and intelligent woman who escapes from a traumatic childhood of loss, and is hurled into the big wide world. The story offers winking parallels to Jesus’s life – sick boy Lazare, a friend named Judas – while pursuing threads on inequality and colonial history. What if we sit watching an endless cycle of films along with cinephile Geumbok, the feisty heroine, and discover that oblivion’s black ocean is actually a darkened cinema theatre? Yet the book has its feet firmly on the ground as we see how power manifests itself in many small, often very ordinary ways. It is a philosophical exploration about memory and nostalgia, about forgetting and trying to hold on to our pasts while making sense of our present and future.