Booker Prize 2023: Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo’s debut novel ‘Western Lane’shortlisted
Booker Prize 2023 judging panel Thursday announced the final list of six novels. The novels are: Western Lane by Chetna Maroo, Prophet Song by Paul Lynch, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray, Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein, If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery and This Other Eden by Paul Harding
Booker Prize 2023 judging panel Thursday announced the final list of six novels from 13 longlisted titles – the so-called “Booker dozen” – which were selected from 163 books published between October last year and September this year.
All the six shortlisted books "showcase the breadth of what world literature can do", BBC reported Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who chairs the judging panel, as saying.
London-based Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo’s debut novel ‘Western Lane’ was among the shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize in London. The others are: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Ireland), The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Ireland), Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (Canada), If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (US) and This Other Eden by Paul Harding (US).
‘Western Lane’ by Chetna Maroo revolves around the story of an 11-year-old British Gujarati girl named Gopi and her bonds with her family. The novel explores an immigrant father's attempts to raise his family as a single parent. Booker judges praised the book for its use of the sport of squash as a metaphor for complex human emotions.
“Chetna Maroo’s deeply evocative debut of a family grappling with grief conveyed through crystalline language which reverberates like the sound of ‘a ball hit clean and hard with a close echo’. It is stunning and it stays with you,” PTI quoted Edugyan as saying while announcing the shortlist.
Kenya-born Maroo said it would be fair to call ‘Western Lane’ as a “sports novel”.
“It’s also been called a coming-of-age novel, a domestic novel, a novel about grief, a novel about the immigrant experience. Recently a friend asked me if the book has something of the detective story about it, with Gopi trying to find her way, piecing together the clues of small gestures, actions and fragments of overheard conversations; she has little to go on and since she’s dealing with the mysteries of loss, there are no answers for her,” PTI reported Maroo as saying.
While the winner, announced on 26 November, of the prize will receive £50,000, others short-listed will also receive £2,500.
“This is truly a list without borders. It includes a Briton of Indian descent, an American of Jamaican descent, a Canadian recently named one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists, and two Irish authors,” PTI quoted Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation as saying.
“Though new to the Booker shortlist, all of these writers have been lauded elsewhere or in other ways… It’s a pleasure to be bringing their extraordinary talents and vastly varied styles to Booker Prize readers – and we can’t wait to hear what the thousands of members of the new Booker Prize Book Club on Facebook have to say about them,” she added.
The prestigious Booker Prize is open to works of fiction written in English by authors anywhere in the world and published in the UK or Ireland.
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First Published:22 Sep 2023, 02:22 AM IST
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