The Man Booker International Prize differs from the annual Man Booker Prize for fiction in that it highlights one writer's continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage (sort of like the Nobel Prize in Literature I would say). It is awarded every two years. This year's contestants are:
Peter Carey (Australia)
Evan S. Connell (USA)
Mahasweta Devi (India)
E.L. Doctorow (USA)
James Kelman (UK)
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia)
Alice Munro (Canada)
V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India)
Joyce Carol Oates (USA)
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
Ngugi Wa Thiong'O (Kenya)
Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)
Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)
I am proud that there is an Italian author on the list. I have always wanted to read Tabucchi's Sostiene Pereira, set in 1930s Portugal during Salazar's dictatorship, and I hope this will give me a push and make me buy the book on my next trip to Italy. I have read a couple of novels by Vargas Llosa (El paraiso en la otra esquina and Los cachorros) and I think he is a wonderful writer. I also want to read La tia Julia y el Escribidor some time soon. Of course, I'd love to read a book by any of these writers, it's just amazing that even though you keep reading and reading there are always some writers you haven't still "tried"...
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