Folio books lahore how to#

The other judges are Rachel Cooke and Deborah Levy.Īll eight books are now in contention for the £40,000 prize to be awarded in central London on 23 March. The shortlist will be particularly pleasing for the publishers Faber and Granta, both of which have three writers represented.įiennes said it was a diverse list, but not deliberately so, chosen after seven hours of judging sessions that included the writers AM Homes and Mohsin Hamid skyping from New York and Lahore respectively. As did Will Self, who last year sparked debate about the state of the novel when he gave a lecture in which he lamented that difficult literary fiction was an art form dying before our eyes.

Unusually, the Folio prize has decided to be transparent and name all the books it considers, which means we know that big names such as Martin Amis, Sarah Waters, Peter Carey and Booker-winner Richard Flanagan all failed to make the shortlist. “These books are a delight to read but they are really intellectually engaging and challenging.” They were “intellectually heavyweight books without being heavy”, he added. Backmans books have been published around the world in more than twenty-five languages. “There’s dazzle and wildness and experiment hand in hand with a deep core commitment to human struggles and fervours and longings.” The books were number one bestsellers in his home country of Sweden. These books all say something true about human experience in a way that feels like something new,” he said. “It is easy to say something new, it is easy to say something true. The novels all have universal themes, he said, exploring big subjects such as war, grief, family life, love and the mystery of art. Tahir, Sabaa A Reaper at the Gate 480pp Harper Collins (London) 8.99. Rana, Anniqua Wild Boar in the Cane Fields 238pp Folio (Lahore) Rs995. The judges read 80 books over five months and Fiennes admitted expecting to find themes of content – war in the Middle East, perhaps, or the aftermath of the financial crash – but instead he found trends in form, with novels seeking “new ways of telling stories”. Khalique, Harris no fortunes to tell introd Navid Shahzad 87pp Folio Books (Lahore) Rs595. These books all say something true about human experience in a way that feels like something new William Fiennes It will compete with Tóibín’s Nora Webster, set in 1960s Ireland Ben Lerner’s 10:04 Miriam Toews’ All My Puny Sorrows Yvonne Adhiambo Owuor’s debut novel Dust Akhil Sharma’s Family Life Rachel Cusk’s Outline and Jenny Offill’s Dept. It was runner-up in the Booker prize and won the Costa novel award and the Goldsmiths prize.

Folio books lahore how to#

The Folio prize aims to recognise the best English-language fiction – regardless of form, genre and geography, and was won in its first year by the American short-story writer George Saunders.Īll eight books this year can safely be described as novels, with Smith’s How to Be Both becoming a book award regular. The prize was created as a reaction to perceived weaknesses of the Man Booker prize and gathered steam in the aftermath of the much-criticised shortlist of 2011, which contained six books that all, as one judge said, “zipped along”. He also occasionally contributes to New Politics, The Ecologist, Dawn and The News International.Five women and three men from the UK, Ireland, US, Canada, Kenya and India were named on the shortlist of a literary prize now in its second year. Zahoor is a member of Haqooq-e-Khalq Party, a grassroots anti-capitalist project in Pakistan. He takes interest in indigenous epistemologies and emerging scientific knowledges in evolutionary biology and life sciences and intends to explore alternative ontologies to lay a new foundation for human-nature relations. His research interests lie in the intersection of philosophy, ecology and technology. He recently completed an MA in Political Philosophy from Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, where he wrote his thesis (“Heidegger, Technology and Thinking: Tracing the Roots of the Ecological Crisis”) under the supervision of philosopher Miguel de Beistegui. He is the editor of a widely-reviewed volume on Pakistan, Rethinking Pakistan: A 21st-Century Perspective (Anthem Press, 2020 Folio Books, 2019). He’s a visiting faculty at Beaconhouse National University, Lahore, where he’s teaching a course, Philosophy in a Time of Climate Crisis, at the Department of Liberal Arts. Author Information: Bilal Zahoor is the founder and editorial director of Folio Books, a Lahore-based independent publishing house.