The announcement that Lydia Davis was awarded the 2013 Man Booker International Prize has attracted a good amount of attention (see also my previous mention).
Among the most enthusiastic pieces in support of her receiving the prize is Stuart Kelly's Lydia Davis fulfils Booker Prize brief in The Scotsman. He addresses the concern about yet another North American and English-writing author receiving the prize by suggesting: "Compared with previous years, they paid far more attention to non-English language writing" (because there were more non-English writing finalists), but is on firmer ground with his advocacy for Davis-as-the-right-choice, finding:
Finally, in The Guardian Vanessa Thorpe reports that Lydia Davis hints at move to microblogging fiction, as the author's publisher is apparently egging her on to try her hand at writing on Twitter; she is apparently: "drawn to the idea, despite the fact she writes with pen and paper".
Among the most enthusiastic pieces in support of her receiving the prize is Stuart Kelly's Lydia Davis fulfils Booker Prize brief in The Scotsman. He addresses the concern about yet another North American and English-writing author receiving the prize by suggesting: "Compared with previous years, they paid far more attention to non-English language writing" (because there were more non-English writing finalists), but is on firmer ground with his advocacy for Davis-as-the-right-choice, finding:
Of the ten writers they considered, Davis is the most avant-garde. Her stories expand the possibility of fiction itself, broaden its horizons, challenge its preconceptions. She is -- and these sometimes seem like virtues the literary world has shunned -- experimental, complicated, daring.On the other hand, in his weekly column in The Independent Boyd Tonkin echoes (scroll down to last item) my concerns and suggests:
Before the North American bias becomes endemic, this award urgently needs a radical re-appraisal.In the Times of India, in There was concern for languages with literary history, G.S.Kumar gets finalist (and Samskara-author) U.R.Ananthamurthy's reactions. The author says of his being a finalist:
It increased their prestige and I increased the prestige of Kannada. It was mutual.But he couldn't help but note:
Acknowledging that the Booker committee meant well by including languages like Kannada, the writer said, "But it could be a marketing strategy. Who knows ?"Then there's Antara Dev Sen's lengthy commentary in the Deccan Chronicle focused specifically on Indian reactions to the prize (not going to Ananthamurthy), in Ambitious prizes, suggesting just how seriously (and not) to take the whole to-do.
Finally, in The Guardian Vanessa Thorpe reports that Lydia Davis hints at move to microblogging fiction, as the author's publisher is apparently egging her on to try her hand at writing on Twitter; she is apparently: "drawn to the idea, despite the fact she writes with pen and paper".