Scribe are thrilled to share that two of our books have been shortlisted for this year's International Booker Prize!
9 April, 2024
Two Scribe titles shortlisted for The International Booker Prize 2024
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 the prestigious prize awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.
Congratulations to all 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 here.
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£12.99 GBP
Mater 2-10
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
International Booker–nominated virtuoso Hwang Sok-yong is back with another powerful story — an epic, multi-generational tale that threads together a century of Korean history.
Centred on three generations of a family of rail workers and a laid-off factory worker staging a high-altitude sit-in, Mater 2-10 vividly portrays the lives 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 that captures a nation’s longing to be free from oppression, a lyrical folktale that manages to reflect the realities of modern industrial work, 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 struggles of a divided nation and bringing to life the trials and tribulations of the Korean people.
£9.99 GBP
What I’d Rather Not Think About
SHORTLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them?
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 humour, 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.
