2020 Booker International Prize Longlist - Reaction
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- čas přidán 26. 02. 2020
- Hi guys, it’s Kamil here with my reaction to the 2020 International Booker Longlist that was just announced today.
Very very exciting day.
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Goodreads links to all of the books:
Red Dog by Willem Anker
/ red-dog
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar
/ 35708940
The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara
/ the-adventures-of-chin...
The Other Name: Septology I-II (Septologien #1-2) by Jon Fosse,
/ the-other-name
The Eighth Life: for Brilka by Nino Haratischwili, Charlotte Collins (Translator),
/ the-eighth-life
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq
/ serotonin
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann
/ tyll
Temporada de huracanes by Fernanda Melchor
/ temporada-de-huracanes
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder (Translator)
/ the-memory-police
Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano, Jennifer Higgins (Translator), Sophie Lewis (Translator)
/ faces-on-the-tip-of-my...
Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin
/ little-eyes
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, Michele Hutchison (Goodreads Author) (Translator)
/ the-discomfort-of-evening
Mac and His Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas, Margaret Jull Costa (Translator), Sophie Hughes (Translator)
/ mac-and-his-problem
#InternationalBooker2020
#FinestFiction #TranslatedFiction
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Eric's video:
• Booker International P...
This is a great reaction video, jam-packed with interesting information and your own personal insights. You’re a huge BookTube 📚 inspiration, Kamil!
Thank you Juan, that is lovely of you to say and I'm blushing right now :)
As a Belgian bookseller, the Dutch translations of The Eighth Life and Tyll were very well received and big bestsellers over here, especially Haratischwili, which all my customers are still lyrical about after two years. So I guess I should finally pick that up, shouldn't I ;)? My coworker finished it and immediately started it again from the beginning, so that is high praise indeed!
That’s a great encouragement for me to pick those up rather earlier than later. Thank you for that
Very much appreciate how in depth you went into each book, thank you for helping us make more informed decisions about the list
Thank you for watching and the pleasure is all mine
Oh God! I haven't read all the shortlisted books from last year's list yet..... Great video Kamil..... A lot of information from behind the scenes......
Thank you so much, no worries about the last year, I believe this one is quite a bit better :)
@@WhatKamilReads It certainly is..... They always try to improve themselves and their readers as well..... That's why I love Booker Prize so much.....
Great video! I’m Dutch, but I’ve never heard of Rijneveld. Guess that shows how up to date I am with Dutch literature :p. I enjoyed the Memory Police, but the most interesting books on that list to me are Cold Iron and the new Schweblin book. Fever dream was so good; I’d like to read more of her. Want to cut down on my TBR before I buy more books though.
Thank you John, great to discover home authors :) I'm also excited about picking Schweblin up
I'm excited to read: Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin; The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar; The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder (Translator); Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano; Hurricane Season by Fernando.
Me too, lots of great books
You got this out so fast. I’m pretty happy with the longlist (although too heavy European). I do hope to read the entire longlist but will see how I go. I’ve read two so far, Memory Police and Max and his Problem.
Good luck with your reading.
Thank you a Michael same to you - How did you like them?
I’m happy with most, except maybe Red Dog and Tyll which don’t really interest me at all...but I’ll still give them a go
Great video (as always). Like you I only read the Houellebecq so far. I will try to read at least TYLL and THE EIGHTH LIFE as I can get both from my library quite easily. BTW, TYLL got glowing reviews in Germany and the book is widely considered to be a masterpiece 😆
Thank you Olaf and regarding Tyll that makes me even more excited about picking it up.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts! This is my favourite prize, so I'm looking forward to reading through the list! I've only read The Memory Police so far, but, fortunately, I already own most of the longlisted books and I just started Tyll. I agree with you about The Eighth Life-this type of story can turn out to be brilliant or overly sentimental, depending on the skill of the writer.
Lucky you regarding owning most of the books:) and thank you for watching. I hope Eight Life delivers, there are overwhelmingly positive response to that one.
Great video! I’m having a hard time deciding which to pick up first.
And which one is it going to be?
WhatKamilReads Initial interest is in Red Dog, Greengage Tree, Tyll, Hurricane Season, Little Eyes, and The Memory Police. Haven’t analyzed the whole list yet.
Just a lil' correction, Kamil - Lobo Antunes is actually portuguese, but he fought in Angola in the colonial war.
Maybe you meant to say Mia Couto and José Eduardo Agualusa (this last one does in fact write [and speak] in portuguese, even though he is Angolan).
Great video, as always.
I love that you seem much more confident in videos lately, showing more wit and sarcasm, unapologetically, and not shying away from political comentary. Two thumbs up from me!
The tempo of releasing the video didn't help. Mixed up the names with Agualusa - I just removed this part from the video as one-third of the comments is about that and as much I don't mind being corrected it's the fifth time me saying yes I know already:)
@@WhatKamilReads Oh, sorry, I didn't bother reading the rest of the comments so I didn't know. It wasn't my intention to sound patronizing.
One thing is for certain, now you know you have many portuguese subscribers. :)
No worries you didn’t sound patronising at all, and yes I believe there’s a few Portuguese here :) which makes me very very happy
So great to get your fuller thoughts on the list - especially on Houellebecq! I can see why you would appreciate certain aspects of his books but my instinct tells me I'll be gritting my teeth while reading it. Once I've read the rest of the books on the list if I have time I might try it - you never know! I could love it.
I usually really enjoy books on books and which self-consciously play with literary form too so I think I'll really enjoy Vila-Matas' book.
I'm looking forward to hearing more of your thoughts about all these as you read them and thanks for the mention! You should come to London when there's a reading from the shortlisted authors! 😉
I agree on Houellebecq - never read him but from all the descriptions of his books and of him - I know we won't get along!
I doubt you would love Houellebecq 😊 but hey miracles happen :). Regarding the reading of shortlisted authors. When is it and if one needs to be invited?
@@WhatKamilReads It's a public event, but I don't think it's been announced yet. They said in the PR for this year's prize there will be a reading and discussion with the shortlisted authors at the SouthBank centre. I guess it'll probably happen mid-May before the winner is announced. I'll let you know if I see tickets have gone on sale.
I started Faces on the Tip of my Tongue, because it's very cheap on Kindle. So far it's good! Interesting how it's so different from the original French, different title and they only translated some of the stories. I found an interview where the translators talk about why they made so many changes.
I like the longlist overall, I wasn't planning to follow it but might end up trying. To the extent that I can get books in Canada, anyway!
Regarding Faces on the Tip of my Tongue, you are the second one mentioning that. It looks like they selected interconnected stories from the original version to make it look like a novel of sort.. very interesting
Thanks for your thoughtful reaction video. I’ve just started Tyll but not loving it. I loved his ‘Measuring the World’ though. I found Memory Police too bleak (but enjoyed yoko ogawa’s other books). Interested to read some of the others from the list.
Thank you for watching Anna and sorry to hear about Tyll. I’ve heard so many good things about Ogawa that it’s good to hear a counterbalance opinion :)
Tyll sounds interesting, maybe I can find it at my library. I'm reading so many English authors, I never look out for compatriotes. 😅
I make an effort to read in translation but even doing that I read overwhelmingly English authors
Hi Kamil! I only read the Y. Ogawa from all the books on the long list. I loved it, although there are some plot inconsistencies. I would like to read Shokoofee Azar and Gabriela Cabezon Camera. And I have three maybes: Fernanda Melchor, Emanuell Pagano and Enrique Vila-Matas. Yet I have to correct something you said, sorry. Antonio Lobo Antunes is a Portuguese psychiatrist and writer. He live and worked all his life in Lisbon. But between 1971-73 he was sand as a doctor to the colonial/independence war in Angola. All he books about Angola remote to this time. Writers from Angola are for example Eduardo Agualusa, Ondjaki or Pepetela among many others. Have a nice week!
Oh I didn’t know that, for some reasons I thought he lived in Angola most of his life, thank you for correcting me. Approciated.
Yes, maybe because he wrote so much about that time in Angola. Thanks for your videos, they are always great. 👌
I hope you'll manage to get your hands on some of the books. On top of my list to read are The Memory Police, The Discomfort of Evening, Thyll, The Eight Life and the Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree. I read that the English translation of Emmanuelle Pagaon's book is actually an abbreviated version of her original French book; so I am not sure yet whether I will read that one in French or English.
Secret Bookcase that’s very unusual about the Pagaon’s book. Do you happen to know what was the reason?
@@WhatKamilReads The French book was a collection of short stories. For the English version, the choice was apparenty made to select those stories that have some links between each other (like recurring characters) in order to make it more cohesive and novel-like.
Thank you for your review of the long list, Kamil! How can we, as a way of thank you, buy you the books you want from the list? The least we could do for all your time and energy you give us all for free! Perhaps let us know how to buy it for you from an Amazon Wish List etc...please?!
Thank you for watching and that is the sweetest thing I’ve heard but I wouldn’t feel comfortable if anybody here spend money on me. Thank you once again for the offer, you are very kind.
The Only one on the list I’ve heard of is The Memory Police. Wondering how many you’ve read and who you think will win?
Jacqueline McMenamin I don’t know who will win nor have preferences yet, I’ve read too little to say, in terms of how many Ive read though it’s all in the video:)
So how many times are you going to travel in the next few months so you can buy all these books? ;-) I hope you'll read most of them, because I won't and I always like to know your opinion.
I saw that a Portuguese viewer has already told you about our fabulous Lobo Antunes, but you were right about African writers writing in Portuguese and in fact Agualusa was nominated in 2016 and Mia Couto was a finalist in 2015. Both amazing authors!
I DNFd Memory Police and I'm not interested in Houellebecq but I might give Vila-Matas a try because he's already been translated into Portuguese. I hope Schweblin, Pagano and Melchor's book become availabe on Scribd soon as they're the one that really piqued my interest.
:-) haha I just booked 11 return tickets (2 books already on e-book) The pace of releasing the video didn't help and I must have mixed up Augualas with Antunes. I just removed this part as one-third of comment section kindly corrects me :) and as much as I don't mind being corrected, it's already the fourth time me replaying "Yes, I know, I'm sorry for the fourth time" :-)
@@WhatKamilReads You really don't have to apologize, Kamil, we know you take great care preparing your videos. It's just that Lobo Antunes is a very ill-tempered man and we fear for your safety next time you come here. This just means that half of your subscribers must be Portuguese. ;-)
António Lobo Antunes is portuguese. 😊
Yes, the pace of releasing this video didn't help, mixed up the names with Agualusa, but thank you for the correction.