Finally, Eva Baltasar has had to settle for being one of the five finalists for the International Booker Prize with her novel Boulder. The winner has been the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov with Time shelter and his English translator Angela Rodel.
The prestigious award that was awarded this Tuesday night in London has recognized for the first time a novel written in the Bulgarian language, which creates a fiction based on Alzheimer's disease.
The president of the Booker International Booker jury, the Franco-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani, highlighted the variety of the finalist works, and stressed that choosing the winner was not easy, as they all deserved the precious award.
The English translation of Boulder, originally published in Catalan by Club Editor, is by the Brazilian translator Julia Sanches, who has specialized in translating works originally written in Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan into English.
It so happens that Sanches had already translated Baltasar's first novel, Permagel, which with Mamut forms the trilogy of questioned motherhood.
The Minister of Culture of the Generalitat de Catalunya has congratulated the finalist Eva Baltasar with this tweet: "Thank you, Eva Baltasar, for taking Catalan literature to the final of the International Booker Prize. Thanks also to the translator Julia Sanches, to the editor Maria Bohigas from Club Editor, and the agent Bernat Fiol from SalmaiaLit. It couldn't have been, but for us you've already won!"
The annual prize for the best work of fiction that has been translated into English and that has been published in the United Kingdom and Ireland, rewards authors and translators in equal parts: 50,000 pounds (57,500 euros) to be distributed among the winners and 5,000 between the nominees in the short list of six finalists, the shortlist.
The other finalists for the 2023 International Booker Prize were Whale, by South Korean Cheon Myeong-kwan (translated by Chi-Young Kim); The Gospel according to the New World, by the writer from Guadalupe Maryse Condé (translation by Richard Philcox; in Spanish El Evangelio del Nuevo Mundo, published by Impedimenta); Standing heavy, by Gauz, author from the Ivory Coast (translation by Frank Wynne; in Spanish, Cobrar por estar de pie, in Baile del Sol); and Still born, by the Mexican Guadalupe Nettel (translation by Rosalind Harvey; in Spanish, La hija única, in Anagrama).
