International Booker 2023

Ninth Building is a fascinating collection of vignettes drawn from Zou Jingzhi’s experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution, first as a boy in Beijing and then as a teenager exiled to the countryside. Zou poetically captures a side of the Cultural Revolution that is less talked about—the sheer tedium and waste of young life, as well as the gallows humor that accompanies such desperate situations.EndorsementsJeremy Tiang’s enthralling translation of this important work of fiction was awarded a PEN/Heim Grant.

Still Born, Guadalupe Nettel's fourth novel, treats one of the most consequential decisions of early adulthood – whether or not to have children – with the intelligence and originality that have won her international acclaim. Alina and Laura are independent, career-driven women in their mid-thirties, neither of whom has built their future around the prospect of a family. Laura has taken the drastic decision to be sterilized, but as time goes by, Alina becomes drawn to the idea of becoming a mother. When Alina’s daughter survives childbirth – after a diagnosis that predicted the opposite – and Laura becomes attached to her neighbour’s son, both women are forced to reckon with the complexity of their emotions.In prose that is as gripping as it is insightful, Guadalupe Nettel explores maternal ambivalence with a surgeon’s touch, carefully dissecting the contradictions that make up the lived experiences of women.

Saroja and Kumaresan are young, in love and in danger. They meet in a small southern Indian town, where Kumaresan works in a soda bottling shop, and quickly marry before returning to Kumaresan’s family village.They are harbouring a dangerous secret: they belong to different castes, and if the villagers find out they will both be in grave peril. Faced with venom from her mother-in-law and pointed questions from her new neighbours, Saroja struggles to adjust to a lonely and uncomfortable life. Kumaresan throws himself into building a new soda business, hoping to scrape together enough money for them to start over somewhere new. But as vicious whispers encircle the couple, will their love be enough to keep them safe?From one of India's most respected and bestselling writers comes a searing and poignant novel about love and intolerance in a small village.Endorsements‘With tender rage, one of India's most powerful living writers breathes life into an age-old tale of forbidden passion’ — Nilanjana Roy‘A major India writer’ — The New York TimesTwice longlisted for the National Book Award.‘So tense it leaves you gasping for air’ — Ellen Barry, The New York Times‘Pyre glows with power… and adds immeasurable value to contemporary Indian literature… a hard and glittering gem of a story’ — The Hindu‘A haunting story of forbidden love set in Southern India that illustrates the cruel consequences of societal intolerance’ — Kirkus Reviews‘Piercing detail… The simple, elegant prose of Vasudevan’s translation ranges from poetic to suspenseful… Murugan deserves worldwide recognition’ — Publishers Weekly

Rico, Mark, Paul and Daniel were 13 when the Berlin Wall fell in autumn 1989. Growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification, they dream of a better life somewhere beyond the brewery quarter. Every night they roam the streets, partying, rioting, running away from their fears, their parents and the future, fighting to exist, killing time. They drink, steal cars, feel wrecked, play it cool, longing for real love and true freedom. Startlingly raw and deeply moving, While We Were Dreaming is an extraordinary coming-of-age novel by one of Germany's most ambitious writers, full of passion, rage, hope and despair.

Buried deep in rural France, little remains of the isolated hamlet of the Three Lone Girls, save a few houses and a curiously assembled quartet: Patrice Bergogne, inheritor of his family’s farm; his wife, Marion; their daughter, Ida; and their neighbor, Christine, an artist. While Patrice plans a surprise for his wife’s fortieth birthday, inexplicable events start to disrupt the hamlet’s quiet existence: anonymous, menacing letters, an unfamiliar car rolling up the driveway. And as night falls, strangers stalk the houses, unleashing a nightmarish chain of events.A painter contends with the ghosts of the French countryside in a psychological literary thriller by a major contemporary French writer. Told in rhythmic, propulsive prose that weaves seamlessly from one consciousness to the next over the course of a day, Laurent Mauvignier’s The Birthday Party is a deft unraveling of the stories we hide from others and from ourselves, a gripping tale of the violent irruptions of the past into the present.

Strange things are afoot in the cosmopolitan city of Lviv, western Ukraine. Seagulls are circling and the air smells salty, though Lviv is a long way from the sea...A ragtag group gathers round a mysterious grave in Lychakiv Cemetery - among them an ex-KGB officer and an ageing hippy he used to spy on. Before long, Captain Ryabtsev and Alik Olisevych are teaming up to discover the source of the "anomalies".Meanwhile, Taras — who makes a living driving kidney-stone patients over cobblestones in his ancient Opel Vectra — is courting Darka, who works nights at a bureau de change despite being allergic to money.The young lovers don't know it, but their fate depends on two lonely old men, relics of another era, who will stop at nothing to save their city.Shot through with Kurkov's unique brand of black humour and vodka-fuelled magic realism, Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv is an affectionate portrait of one of the world's most intriguing cities.Translated from the Russian by Reuben WoolleyA hugely entertaining romp through the beautiful city of Lviv, by the author of Death and the Penguin and Grey Bees, now reporting widely on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his home country.

A cat-and-mouse game of surveillance and psychological torment develops between a middle-aged artist and her aging mother, as Vigdis Hjorth returns to the themes of her controversial modern classic, Will and Testament."To mother is to murder, or close enough," thinks Johanna as she looks at the spelling of the two words in Norwegian. She's recently widowed and back in Oslo after a long absence as she prepares for a retrospective of her art. The subject of her work is motherhood, and some of her more controversial paintings have brought about a dramatic rift between parent and child. This new proximity, after decades of acrimonious absence, sets both women on edge. Before long Johanna finds her mother stalking her thoughts, and she begins stalking her mother's house.

In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens 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.As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present – a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.Eloquently translated by Angela Rodel.

Initially a little intrigued, all babies eventually return the security guard's smile. The security guard adores babies. Perhaps because babies do not shoplift. Babies adore the security guard. Perhaps because he does not drag babies to the sales.The 1960s — Ferdinand arrives in Paris from Côte d'Ivoire, ready to take on the world and become a big somebody. The 1990s — It is the Golden Age of immigration, and Ossiri and Kassoum navigate a Paris on the brink of momentous change. The 2010s — In a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées, the all-seeing eye of a security guard observes the habits of those who come to worship at this church of consumerism.Amidst the political bickering of the inhabitants of the Residence for Students from Côte d'Ivoire and the ever-changing landscape of French immigration policy, Ferdinand, Ossiri and Kassoum, two generations of Ivoirians, attempt to make their way as undocumented workers, taking shifts as security guards at a flour mill.Translated from the French by Frank WynneSharply satirical, political and poignant, Standing Heavy is a searingly witty deconstruction of colonial legacies and capitalist consumption, an unprecedented and unforgettable account of everything that passes under a security guard's gaze.Endorsements"Inventive and very funny" — Guardian"A compact, humane satire" — Financial Times

A miracle baby is born on Easter Sunday, rumored to be the child of God. Award-winning Caribbean author Maryse Condé follows his journey in search of his origins and mission.One Easter Sunday, Madame Ballandra puts her hands together and exclaims: “A miracle!” Baby Pascal is strikingly beautiful, brown in complexion, with gray-green eyes like the sea. But where does he come from? Is he really the child of God? So goes the rumor, and many signs throughout his life will cause this theory to gain ground. From journey to journey and from one community to another, Pascal sets off in search of his origins, trying to understand the meaning of his mission. Will he be able to change the fate of humanity? And what will the New World Gospel reveal? For all its beauty, vivacity, humor, and power, Maryse Condé’s latest novel is above all a work of combat. Lucid and full of conviction, Condé attests that solidarity and love remain our most extraordinary and lifesaving forces.Endorsements“Throughout her four-decade literary career, the Guadeloupean writer has explored a global vision of the Black diaspora, and placed Caribbean life at the center. In the past few years, Condé has been showered with honors and accolades across the globe. The Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat sees Condé as a “giant of literature,” whose prolific work connects continents and generations. One thing is certain: Condé is finally receiving the acclaim her wide-ranging body of work deserves.” — Anderson Tepper, The New York Times

Working as a cook on a merchant ship, a woman comes to know and love Samsa, a woman who gives her the nickname "Boulder." When Samsa gets a job in Reykjavik and the couple decides to move there together, Samsa decides that she wants to have a child. She is already forty and can't bear to let the opportunity pass her by. Boulder is less enthused, but doesn't know how to say no—and so finds herself dragged along on a journey that feels as thankless as it is alien.With motherhood changing Samsa into a stranger, Boulder must decide where her priorities lie, and whether her yearning for freedom can truly trump her yearning for love.