Scribe is delighted to share that our two longlisted titles have made it through to the shortlist for the 2024 International Booker Prize.
10 April, 2024
Two Scribe titles shortlisted for 2024 International Booker Prize
Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong (trans. Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae) and What I'd Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma (trans. Sarah Timmer Harvey) are both in contention for this prestigious prize awarded annually for a single book in translation.
Further elaborating on the specific merits of each book, the International Booker Prize judges have said that, ‘In Mater 2-10, we see Korea’s truest resilience and passion through its labourers, who when forced to choose between right and wrong, loyalty or betrayal, country or occupier, chose instead to survive another day, in whatever ways they could manage, on either side, or neither side, so that they might continue to seed the Korea of the future.’ You can find an extract from the novel here.
The judges have described What I’d Rather Not Think About as ‘a deeply moving journey through the intertwining lives of twins grappling with the complexities of identity, loss, and the unspoken bonds that define us ... Readers will cherish the novel’s delicate balance between humour and heartbreak.’ You can find a short extract from the novel here.
Congratulations to all of the shortlisted authors and translators!
The winner will be announced at a ceremony on 21 May. For more information about the prize and the other shortlisted titles, please visit the Booker Prize website.
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$22.00 USD
Mater 2-10
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
International Booker–nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story—an epic tale that threads together a century of Korean history.
In contemporary Seoul, a laid-off worker stages a months-long sit-in atop a sixteen-story factory chimney. During the long and lonely nights, he talks to his ancestors, chewing on the meaning of life, on wisdom passed down the generations.
Through the lives of those ancestors, three generations of railroad workers, Mater 2-10 vividly portrays the struggles of ordinary Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is at once a gripping account of a nation’s longing to be free from oppression, a lyrical folktale that reflects the blood, sweat, and tears shed by modern industrial laborers, and a culmination of Hwang’s career—a masterpiece thirty years in the making.
A true voice of a generation, Hwang shows again why he is unmatched when it comes to depicting the roots and reality of a divided nation and bringing to life the trials and tribulations of the Korean people.
$15.00 USD
What I’d Rather Not Think About
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
What happens when the person you’ve built your entire life on is suddenly gone?
This question lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely.
In brief, precise vignettes, full of gentle melancholy and surprising humor, Posthuma tells the story of a depressive brother, viewed from the perspective of the sister who both loves and resents her twin, struggles to understand him, and misses him terribly.
