Man Booker prize 2018 longlist includes graphic novel for the first time

cynic

A graphic novel about a vanished young woman and a thriller about a vanished mother have elbowed their way on to a giant-slaying Man Booker prize longlist that “capture something about a world on the brink”.

Nick Drnaso’s Sabrina, the first graphic novel ever to reach the Booker longlist, explores the chilling effect of 24-hour news after a girl has disappeared. Judges picked it as a contender for the £50,000 prize ahead of titles from former winners including Pat Barker, Julian Barnes, Peter Carey and Alan Hollinghurst, describing it as “oblique, subtle [and] minimal” and saying the “changing shape of fiction” meant it was only a matter of time before a graphic novel made the cut.

“We all read it and were blown away by it,” said the judge and bestselling crime novelist Val McDermid. “The graphic novel has increasingly become front and centre in terms of storytelling [and] we felt [Sabrina] does just what good fiction should do.”

Also in the running for the UK’s most prestigious literary award is a thriller from the crime writer Belinda Bauer. Snap opens with a mother abandoning her three children in a broken-down car and plays out as they struggle to deal with her disappearance. The judges called it an “acute, stylish, intelligent novel about how we survive trauma”, which “undermines the tropes of its own genre and leaves us with something that lingers”.

“I’d read it even before I knew I would be a Booker judge and it seemed to me to be an outstanding novel,” said McDermid. “My fellow judges read it and one said, ‘This transcends genre’, and someone else said, ‘This shows what genre can do at its best’ ... It is an extremely clever piece of storytelling with characters you care about, and that’s what we were looking for – something well written that engages with mind and heart.”

A longlist that stands out for its “willingness to take risks with form”, according to chair of judges Kwame Anthony Appiah, also features debuts from Sophie Mackintosh and Guy Gunaratne. Mackintosh’s The Water Cure “unpicks patriarchy at its core”, according to the panel, while Gunaratne’s In Our Mad and Furious City is “an inner city novel for our times”. The poet Robin Robertson mixes verse and prose in his first novel, The Long Take, while Daisy Johnson’s first novel, Everything Under, is enough to put the 27-year-old alongside Sally Rooney, picked for Normal People, as the youngest authors on this year’s list. Johnson and Rooney are “looking at the world from the perspective of their age and their books have a very different flavour”, McDermid explained, “but they’re there because they impressed us”.

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Mousetrap

So, I checked out the art style and it is so meh.... but I'm assuming it's an impressive story, then? I love quite a few of the artists picked by D&Q, Tom Gauld being my favorite!

cynic

Mousetrap 30-7-2018 04:43 PM
So, I checked out the art style and it is so meh.... but I'm assuming it's an impressive story, then ...

According to the judges, it is indeed the story telling. I am not really a fan of award winning books, but it is nice to see a graphic novel make it to the list.

Mousetrap

cynic 30-7-2018 10:09 PM
According to the judges, it is indeed the story telling. I am not really a fan of award winning bo ...

Me neither... I remember reading 'Interpreter of Maladies' and wondering why it deserved the award. It was  a bunch of average to annoying stories.

cynic

Mousetrap 30-7-2018 10:15 PM
Me neither... I remember reading 'Interpreter of Maladies' and wondering why it deserved the award ...

Exactly. I have read better books that are practically unknown. Maybe it is like the Oscars, all about the marketing.

divey

its nice to see novels having graphics now, they can be great especially for young readers who have just started reading.

divey

cynic 30-7-2018 10:36 PM
Exactly. I have read better books that are practically unknown. Maybe it is like the Oscars, all ab ...

I think the judges look at the technical aspects probably like writing style or how the author builds a story. They need to look at the book like a reader also. Also any book which gets a prize suddenly sees more sales and a lot of interest is build around it, so yes it can also be a bit of marketing tactic

cynic

divey 31-7-2018 12:45 PM
I think the judges look at the technical aspects probably like writing style or how the author bui ...

Ditto on the sales surge. I meant marketing it to the jury too. I read that an Oscar nomination requires some really agressive marketing targeted at jury members that starts 6 months before the awards are scheduled. No Best Picture nominee has gotten there without a campaign in 40 years.

divey

cynic 31-7-2018 03:02 PM
Ditto on the sales surge. I meant marketing it to the jury too. I read that an Oscar nomination req ...

yes, and that may be one of the reason that Indian movies dont end up winning any Oscar. I mean we do make some really gross stuff but we also priduce some really good stuff, which is fit for competing at global level

jhsurti

divey 31-7-2018 03:39 PM
yes, and that may be one of the reason that Indian movies dont end up winning any Oscar. I mean we ...

Couldn't agree more. All awards these days seem to be driven by marketing. Sell yourselves. TV reality shows are also rigged. So whare do you find honesty?