Anuk’s story that ‘unfurls like smoke’ shortlisted for Booker
Anuk Arudpragasam
Sri Lankan writer Anuk Arudpragasam has been shortlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize for his novel A Passage North.
“We had to find a place on the shortlist for A Passage North, in which Anuk Arudpragasam turns his poetic sensibility and profound, meticulous attentiveness to the business of living in the aftermath of trauma. The story unfurls like smoke as our narrator sifts through memories of a lost love affair while turning over in his mind the strange death of his grandmother’s carer, a woman irrevocably damaged by the death of her young sons in the Sri Lankan civil war. In hypnotic, incantatory style, Arudpragasam considers how we can find our way in the present while also reckoning with the past,” said Horatia Harrod, member of the 2021 Booker Prize judging panel.
The final six novels in the Booker Prize shortlist includes debut novelist Patricia Lockwood for No One Is Talking About This, Damon Galgut -The Promise, Richard Powers – Bewilderment, Nadifa Mohamed with The Fortune Men and Maggie Shipstead with Great Circle.
“With so many ambitious and intelligent books before us, the judges engaged in rich discussions not only about the qualities of any given title, but often about the purpose of fiction itself. We are pleased to present a shortlist that delivers as wide a range of original stories as it does voices and styles,” commented Maya Jasanoff, chair of the 2021 Booker Prize judges.
A Passage North contains no dialogue and is narrated by Krishan who receives a call about the death of his grandmother’s caretaker. The novel details the journey the narrator takes to the North East of the country for the funeral while exploring themes of war, time, memory and mourning.
This is Anuk Arudpragasam’s second novel. His debut novel The Story of a Brief Marriage (2016) was translated into seven languages, won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize. He studied philosophy in the United States and received a doctorate at Columbia University. He is presently a Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination. Over the past months, he has been working on another book.
This year’s Booker Prize nominees were selected from among 158 entries published in Ireland or the United Kingdom. The winner who will be announced on November 3 will receive £50,000.
The Sunday Times interview with Anuk Arudpragasam published on August 22, 2021 can be viewed on https://www.sundaytimes.lk/210822/plus/a-reflection-on-what-it-means-to-remember-452754.html