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Man Booker Prize Winner 2016 #FinestFiction

I’ve not really been following the prize this year, although I listed the titles of the longlist as they are generally where I identify the book or author I’m most likely to be interested in.  You can find the Man Booker Longlist here.

So the book that stood out for me from the longlist and the only one I have a copy of ready to read, actually made the shortlist which was Madeleine Thien (Canada) – Do Not Say We Have Nothing

Here are the titles from the shortlist and if you scroll down the winner will be revealed at the bottom of the page!

The 2016 Shortlist

Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout (Oneworld)

  • Satire about a young man’s isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant

Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)

  • Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother’s unexplainable illness. She and her mother travel to the searing, arid coast of southern Spain to see a famous consultant in the hope that he might cure her unpredictable limb paralysis. A profound exploration of the sting of sexuality, of unspoken female rage, myth and modernity, the lure of hypochondria.

Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project (Contraband)

  • A brutal triple murder in a remote northwestern crofting community in 1869 leads to the arrest of a young man by the name of Roderick Macrae. There’s no question that Macrae is guilty, but the police and courts must uncover what drove him to murder the local village constable. And who were the other two victims?

Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen (Jonathan Cape)

  • A lonely young woman working in a boys’ prison outside Boston in the early 60s is pulled into a very strange crime, in a mordant, harrowing story of obsession and suspense. Set in the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas. 5 “repugnant, vile, fierce, exhibitionistic” stars said Jaidee, who recommends it for those willing to see the darkness in women.

David Szalay (Canada-UK) All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)

  • Nine men. Each at a different stage of life, all living away from home, striving – in the suburbs of Prague, beside a Belgian motorway, in a cheap Cypriot hotel – to understand just what it means to be alive, here and now. A piercing portrayal of 21st-century manhood.

Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books)

  • In Canada in 1991, ten-year-old Marie and her mother invite a guest into their home: a young woman who has fled China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square protests. Her story brings to life one of the most significant political regimes of the 20th century and its traumatic legacy, which still resonates for a new generation. A gripping evocation of the persuasive power of revolution and its effects on personal and national identity, and an unforgettable meditation on China today.

And the Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction for 2016 is….

*****

The Sellout by Paul Beatty

 

 

Click Here to Buy a Copy of Any Book from the Man Booker Prize

 

13 thoughts on “Man Booker Prize Winner 2016 #FinestFiction”

  1. The only one I’ve read is Madeleine Thien’s “Do Not Say We Have Nothing”. I found it gripping – couldn’t put it down! After months of travel it was a sweet pleasure to have the time and the mind space to revel in the world Thien created.
    However, I have to admit I often find satire difficult so I’ll check out some of the reviews before deciding whether to read “The Sellout”.

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  2. I have just read and reviewed ‘His Bloody Project’, which I thought was excellent if very hard work at times. It doesn’t matter that it didn’t take home the prize since the increased coverage of being on the Booker shortlist has already made it a winner. According to the Guardian, in the week before nomination, it had sold just one copy. Anyone who liked 2001’s winner ‘True History of the Kelly Gang’ by Peter Carey would enjoy it. My review: https://alastairsavage.wordpress.com/2016/10/24/his-bloody-project-by-graeme-macrae-burnet/

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    • I agree, this prize has probably created the most success for His Bloody Project, wonderful when books under bushels, get the big light shone on them and people discover how good they are and hopefully might be tempted to look beyond their regular choices and publishers. Thanks for the link to your review!

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  4. I highly recommend Thien’s novel and hoped it would win. But I’ve read all the books on the list except for Burnet’s novel and they are all excellent in their own way. Luckily I just finished reading The Sellout this past weekend. It’s really clever, funny and a complex way looking at race/racial stereotypes.

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    • I’ll be checking out your review Eric, I think you attended the event didn’t you? 🙂 Great to know you’ve read so many of them so we can check out your other reviews too. Sorry your bet didn’t come through this year!

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  5. Thien’s book is currently top of my list, on account of my having recently read and failed to enjoy Amchee Min’s Becoming Madame Mao. I’ve just heard Paul Beatty on the radio. He sounds a most reluctant star. Definitely not chat-show material, poor man!

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  8. Thien’s book is excellent and I was hoping it would win, but I’m happy that she won the Governor General’s Literary Award at least. 🙂
    I’m hoping some more bloggers will read The Sellout, so I can get a better idea of what people think of the winner!

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  9. Pingback: Top Reads 2016 – Word by Word

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