LONDON -- A Zimbabwean writer who was arrested during anti-government protests is among six finalists announced Tuesday on a diverse list of contenders for the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction.
Tsitsi Dangarembga was nominated for the 50,000-pound (US$64,000) award for âThis Mournable Body,â which links the breakdown of its central character and turmoil in post-colonial Zimbabwe.
Dangarembga, one of Zimbabwe's most garlanded authors, was arrested in July and spent a night in detention for standing by a road in the capital of Harare and holding up a placard that said âWe Want Better. Reform Our Institutions.â
The Booker list this year is dominated by books from American or U.S.-based authors, including âThe Shadow Kingâ by Ethiopia-born Maaza Mengiste, Diane Cook's dystopian tale âThe New Wilderness,â Avni Doshi's India-set âBurnt Sugarâ and Brandon Taylor's campus novel âReal Life.â
Only one British writer made the cut for the U.K.'s leading book prize: Douglas Stuart for âShuggie Bain,â the story of a boy in 1980s Glasgow. Stuart, too, is U.S.-based - he has lived in New York for years.
The winner will be revealed Nov. 17, though the traditional black-tie dinner ceremony at London's medieval Guildhall has been scrapped because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Founded in 1969, the prize is open to English-language authors from around the world, but until 2014 only British, Irish and Commonwealth writers were eligible.
That year's change sparked fears among some Britons that it would become a U.S-dominated prize. That hasn't happened, yet. There have been two American winners, Paul Beatty's âThe Selloutâ in 2016 and George Saunders' âLincoln in the Bardoâ in 2017.
The prize's literary director, Gaby Wood, said she was not concerned by the lack of British novelists on the shortlist. She said readers âdon't look at passports.â
The prize, subject to intense speculation and a flurry of betting, usually brings the victor a huge boost in sales and profile.
This year's shortlist includes four debut novelists - Doshi, Cook, Stuart and Taylor - and omits high-profile books including Anne Tyler's âRedhead by the Side of the Roadâ and âThe Mirror and the Light,â the conclusion of Hilary Mantel's acclaimed Tudor trilogy. Mantel won the Booker for both its predecessors, âWolf Hallâ and âBring up the Bodiesâ and had been widely tipped for a third victory.
Thriller writer Lee Child, one of the judges, said Mantel's book was âan absolutely wonderful novel.â
âBut as good as it was, there were some books that were better,â he said.