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The National
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- The National
James Tait Black Prizes 2025 announced
The James Tait Memorial Black Prize, now in its 106th year, is the only major British book prize to be judged by literature scholars and students. This year is the first time that both prizes – which are awarded in fiction and biography – have been awarded to translated works. READ MORE: Warning after 'five lamb heads' found dumped in Glasgow park's pond It is also only the second time a writer and translator have been awarded a prize together in the history of the awards. The prizes were first opened to translations in 2021, with authors and translators honoured equally. The winning authors receive a £10,000 prize. See the winners of this year's prizes below. James Tait Memorial Black Prize winners 2025: Fiction: My Heavenly Favourite, Lucas Rijneveld, translated by Michele Hutchison (Faber & Faber) Biography: My Great Arab Melancholy, Lamia Ziade, translated by Emma Ramadan (Pluto Press) Lucas Rijneveld's winning fiction title, My Heavenly Favourite, translated by Michele Hutchison, charts a rural veterinarian's obsession with a young woman. The novel was commended by judges for its unique voice and uncompromising storytelling. Rijneveld is a Dutch writer known for his emotionally intense and stylistically bold work. His debut novel, The Discomfort of Evening (2018), won the 2020 International Booker Prize. READ MORE: Japanese ambassador meets John Swinney during Scotland visit Translator Hutchison is a British writer and translator specialising in Dutch-language literature, and also won the 2020 International Booker Prize for her translation of Rijneveld's debut novel. Rijneveld said: 'What a glorious honour to be added to the tremendous list of literary giants who preceded me in receiving this wonderful award.' Hutchison added: 'What an honour to share this year's prize with Lucas Rijneveld for My Heavenly Favourite which certainly was a challenging book to translate. 'I've long been aware of the prize's reputation and its sterling catalogue of winners so to be included among them is a genuine thrill." The fiction prize judging panel, led by University of Edinburgh academics Benjamin Bateman and Hannah Boast, said: "Lucas Rijneveld's challenging, inventive novel is a major literary achievement that confirms his status as one of Europe's most exciting new writers. "Our panel praised his distinctive and vivid language, which was rendered in a stunning translation by Michele Hutchison. My Heavenly Favourite is a uniquely claustrophobic and compulsive read.' The biography prize has been awarded to Lamia Ziade for My Great Arab Melancholy, translated by Emma Ramadan. The text traces the lives of Arab intellectuals from the mid-20th century onward, exploring the cultural and political upheaval of the Arab world, capturing a sense of collective loss and longing. READ MORE: 'Do something!': Question Time audience member in fiery row with Labour MP on Israel Beirut-born Ziade is a French-Lebanese author and illustrator, while Ramadan is an award-winning literary translator, specialising in French to English work. Commenting, Ziade said: 'It is a great honour to receive this prestigious prize. I want to thank the jury from the bottom of heart for granting such distinction to a book so passionately supportive of the Palestinian cause. 'In the horrific times we are living through, I am doubly touched by this honour. I am also very grateful to David Shulman, my editor at Pluto Press, for publishing this book so unusual in both its form and its subject, and to my translator Emma Ramadan for her excellent work.' Ramadan said: 'My deepest gratitude to the jury for recognizing this essential book by Lamia Ziadé that uplifts the undersung stories of martyrs, revolutionaries, and dreamers of the Arab world, decrying the imperialist forces that wreaked havoc in this region, and revealing the ripple effect in our current climate. 'This award for a hybrid work of writing and illustrations, is a recognition of bravery and originality in storytelling and publishing.' Biography prize judges Dr Simon Cooke and Desha Osborne said: "My Great Arab Melancholy presents a visually striking and poignant blend of text and image that tells a story of overwhelming loss and perseverance for the people of the Middle East. "The images – historical and traumatic – linger in the memory long after turning the page. The words - beautifully translated - speak only when necessary and yet are inseparable from the images. "Both speak to the past, present and future of a world through the eyes of its author-illustrator.' A ceremony to recognise the winning titles and the shortlisted entries will take place on Friday.
New Statesman
22-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
From Helen Oyeyemi to bell hooks: new books reviewed in short
A New New Me by Helen Oyeyemi 'Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself': the words of Matthew 12:45 are echoed by Helen Oyeyemi in her latest novel. Kinga Sikora is Polish-born, a recently naturalised Czech: her interest as a protagonist is enhanced by there being seven versions of her. Each Kinga is allocated a day of the week and has a corresponding double-barrelled name: Kinga-Alojzia, Kinga-Blažena, Kinga-Casimira and so forth. But somewhere, dormant for now, lies the 'OG Kinga'. All the Kingas keep a diary informing each other of what they get up to, as their memory is limited to their days of the week. There are allusions to the occult, the Luxury Enamel Posse and a mysterious man, Jarda, who is hiding in the Kingas' house, all while the preceding Kingas attempt to unravel the mystery of Kinga-Genovéva's odd behaviour. Any ideas of where the plot might be going will most definitely be derailed by Oyeyemi's dizzyingly funny narrative. But the story's crowning jewel is the author's ability to create seven unique voices belonging to one individual. By Zuzanna Lachendro Faber & Faber, 256pp, £16.99. Buy the book Irascible: The Combative Life of Douglas Cooper, Collector and Friend of Picasso by Adrian Clark and Richard Calvocoressi At the age of 21, Douglas Cooper inherited £100,000 and set about creating the life he wanted for himself – collector of cubist art, friend of painters, art historian and man of opinions both strongly held and waspishly expressed. He became the most important of all Picasso aficionados and built a peerless cache of pictures which he displayed in his château near Nîmes. Something of Cooper's formidable personality and vivid life were revealed by his former lover John Richardson in his wonderfully entertaining memoir The Sorcerer's Apprentice (1999). Now the biographer Adrian Clark and the art historian Richard Calvocoressi give him the full biographical treatment, and he fully merits their careful and scholarly attention. While acting as an unwavering proselytiser for Picasso, Braque, Gris and Léger, Cooper accrued a distinguished war record as a 'monuments man', barely escaped death when stabbed by a rough-trade pick-up on a French country road, maintained a loathing for Britain and its conservative art establishment, and managed to fall out with Picasso after decades of friendship. Cooper was not always a likeable man, but he was never dull. By Michael Prodger Yale University Press, 592pp, £45. Buy the book Art on My Mind: Visual Politics by bell hooks The 18 essays, critiques and interviews in this reissued 1995 collection are a response to the late theorist and cultural critic's despair at the dearth of black artists, and especially black female artists, in progressive cultural criticism. Their topics span hooks' experiences of making art in America's recently desegregated South, the politics of aesthetics, conversations with working artists, and proposals for a more democratic model of cultural production. In this last area, hooks emphasises a profoundly humanist rather than identitarian approach – which feels particularly interesting to revisit in the contemporary context of identity politics. 'Whether art is overtly political or not, artistic work that emerges from an unfettered imagination affirms the primacy of art as that space… where we can find the deepest, most intimate understanding of what it means to be free,' she writes. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Art on My Mind is at once a grounded and rigorous engagement with existing structures of power and a visceral, dreamy meditation on creative expression, written with clarity, warmth and ease. By Sydney Diack Penguin, 304pp, £10.99. Buy the book To Have or to Hold by Sophie Pavelle It is a cliché to assert that humans are part of nature; we do, after all, share a common ancestor with chimpanzees. But in this modern world, full to the brim with technology and overarched by human progress, it is often easy to forget that our entire existence is dependent on a fragile, symbiotic relationship with the natural world. In her latest book, Sophie Pavelle takes this relationship as her focus, exploring what wildlife and nature can teach us about how to live together. From fungi and shellfish to oak trees, ants and solitary bees, Pavelle offers a bracing tour of the complex web of interconnections which support and give life to the natural world. She also explains how these plants and creatures and their co-dependencies are faring amid an increasing climate and ecological emergency. In Gen Z style, each chapter – which takes as its focus a relationship in nature – is subtitled with a zeitgeist-y descriptor of exactly the form that relationship takes (although the explanation of one connection as a 'throuple' perhaps goes too far). Pavelle's own relationship with nature is clearly an intimate one. Her knowledge is exhaustive and is accompanied by beautiful, lively storytelling. By Megan Kenyon Bloomsbury, 336pp, £20. Buy the book [See also: It's the nuance, stupid] Related This article appears in the 21 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Britain's Child Poverty Epidemic
New Statesman
01-05-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Solvej Balle's day without end
Photo by Judit Nilsson / SvD / TT Tara Selter runs an antiquarian books business with her husband, Thomas. They live on the outskirts of a town in northern France, although Tara often travels to book fairs here and there, as she has done – to one in Bordeaux – when her life changes. On her way home she stops in Paris to collect some books for clients. She checks in to a hotel on the evening of 17 November, keeps numerous appointments on the 18th, burns her hand while spending the evening with friends and calls Thomas from her room before going to sleep. But the newspaper she picks up at breakfast the next day is dated the 18th. A simple mistake, she thinks, until someone in the dining room drops a slice of bread and hesitates over what to do with it, just as she watched him do the day before. She checks other newspapers at a kiosk; withdraws cash and studies the receipt; calls her husband, who doesn't remember the previous night's conversation. She still has the burn, but everything else she did on the 18th, including the purchasing of books, which she finds back on the shelves of the shops where she bought them, has been reset. For Tara, the 18th of November is happening again. In fact On the Calculation of Volume begins on Tara's 121st 18 November, which enables her journal entries to recount her outlandish situation with a degree of calmness and clarity (these, as becomes clear, not being the same as acceptance or understanding). By this point she has returned home – while the date resets at some point in the night, physically she remains wherever she has travelled to – and is living secretly in the spare room of her house. She knows each of her husband's movements, when he will go out and return home, when he will make a noise that will mask her own, and so can inhabit the day like a ghost, keeping her journal and working on theories while remaining unseen and unheard. Solvej Balle herself has been largely unseen and unheard since stunning literary Denmark with her 1993 story collection According to the Law. She downplays accounts of reclusiveness, protesting that all she did was leave Copenhagen. But On the Calculation of Volume nevertheless represents an extraordinary late-career success: the first five self-published books (with two to come) became a sensation in Denmark, the first three together winning the 2022 Nordic Council Literature Prize, and attracting publishers around the world. In the UK Faber & Faber has published the first two books simultaneously (translated by Barbara J Haveland), with the third following in November. The first has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. When we meet Tara she is keeping herself apart, but there was an earlier time when she would tell Thomas, every morning, what had happened to her, convincing him with her uncanny knowledge of the day ahead: ' I could tell him when the rain would stop and when it would start again, I could tell him that the postman would come by at 10.41 during a light shower, I could describe how soon after that a long-tailed titmouse would flit about the branches of the apple tree, and I could predict that at 5.14 in the afternoon, in the pouring rain, our neighbour would hurry past the fence at the bottom of our back garden, turn right and jog down the path between our house and his own.' Together they discuss what has happened, formulate possible solutions, and carry out experiments. But as time goes on, or in Tara's case doesn't, she tires of having to explain things anew each day. She is also disappointed by Thomas's refusal to accompany her to Paris, thinking the door leading out of this loop in time must be located where she entered it. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The first two books of Balle's project achieve a compelling balance of action and thought. Tara thinks a lot but also does while she thinks. As well as being good at this, Balle is also preternaturally gifted at answering questions just as they start to form in a reader's mind. The first that occurs concerns how Tara got from Paris to Clairon-sous-Bois (those indoctrinated by the Harold Ramis film Groundhog Day might expect her to return to the same place each time she wakes). She cannot move in time, but she can move in space. This opens fields of possibility. One of the dominant episodes in the second book involves a scheme to manufacture a year by travelling to different latitudes: following a chance meeting with a meteorologist she travels to Sweden and Norway for winter, Cornwall for spring, southern Spain for summer. If there's a kind of madness to the idea, it's a madness that helps keep her sane. As for all these different climates coexisting on a single autumn day, it's a great advert for the Schengen Area. Another involving subplot concerns what Tara can hang on to versus what disappears when time resets. Through experiment she learns the rules are knowable but not immutable: 'We bought things and left them lying in the kitchen. We opened them or left them unopened. We observed and we kept notes. Usually, the items that we hadn't opened disappeared during the night and went back to where we had bought them. We took things up to the bedroom with us at night, I bought a jar of olives and placed it on the windowsill, I put a toothbrush, unopened and still in its box, under my pillow. The following morning the toothbrush was still there, box and all, but the jar of olives was gone and a packet of tea which Thomas had put in a kitchen cabinet had also vanished.' Tara adapts her behaviours as she becomes more familiar with what is and isn't possible. If she wants to keep a new dress she must wear it immediately, with nothing underneath, to 'train' it to stay with her. She also learns that the food she consumes stays consumed. If she goes to a café and orders the same dish several days in a row, eventually that dish disappears from the menu. She finds this fact deeply disturbing. It makes her 'a monster in a finite world'. One of the most impressive things about Balle's project is the care she has taken in thinking about Tara's predicament both practically and philosophically, and the sedulousness with which she explores it. The book Thomas is (repeatedly) reading in Clairon-sous-Bois is called Lucid Investigations, the title of which works for Balle's novel, too: even when the logic becomes head-spinning, the prose maintains its methodical, elegant pace. And while individuals might differ from Tara in their priorities (I imagine some would consider a fling earlier than day 578), her situation says something universal and profound about loneliness and depression, as well as the monotony that characterises certain stretches of our lives. By the close of book two, three years have passed and Tara is in Düsseldorf, where she seems to have a pretty nice time. She squats in an old architect's studio, spends days reading in cafés, watches a local football team win promotion (actually impossible in Germany in November) and attends university lectures. She knows she is privileged, 'that my cage is gilded', but on the final page its bars are rattled: the next 18 November, it seems, will be very different from the last. On the Calculation of Volume Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J Haveland Faber & Faber, 192pp, £12.99 Purchasing a book may earn the NS a commission from who support independent bookshops [See also: The second birth of JMW Turner] Related This article appears in the 30 Apr 2025 issue of the New Statesman, The War on Whitehall
The Herald Scotland
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
'One of the most unusual and powerful books I've read'
Allen Lane, £20 One of the most unusual and powerful books I've read in a long time. Chinese Canadian-British writer Alice Mah is Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Red Pockets – the red envelopes used in China to give money to family and clan members – describes her return to her ancestral village in South China, and the reverberations of that disturbing visit. In a soul-searching narrative that charts her escalating despair over the global climate emergency, she addresses the ways in which the world's plight is connected with unresolved issues from the past. Drawing on the cultural and economic histories of China, Canada, England, and Scotland, Mah navigates her own fretful response to her family history and her fears for the future. Clear-eyed and sensitive, Red Pockets is a moving and imaginative memoir of facing up to the wrongs of the past, at the same time asking what we owe to previous generations, and to those who will inherit this planet from us. A Granite Silence Nina Allan Riverrun, £20 A Granite Silence by Nina Allan (Image: Rivverrun) The murder in Aberdeen in 1934 of eight-year-old Helen Priestly horrified the nation and had a shattering impact on the overcrowded tenement community where she lived. In this closely researched account, Nina Allan creatively explores the many elements exposed by this dreadful crime. Wild Fictions Amitav Ghosh Faber & Faber, £25 In the run-up to the Iraq War, Indian-born novelist Amitav Ghosh clashed with a well-known American editor, who refused to see the USA as anything but a benign and altruistic force. In the years since, he has produced a drawerful of highly-researched pieces, now brought together in this collection. Covering some of the most pressing subjects in recent decades, from 9/11, the ongoing legacy of imperialism, Hurricane Katrina, the refugee crisis, and disasters such as the 2004 Indonesian tsunami - the natural and the political cannot be separated, he argues - this is an unflinching portrait of our times from a refreshingly original perspective. Room on the Sea André Aciman Faber & Faber, £12.99 Room on the Sea by André Aciman (Image: Faber & Faber) Meeting while awaiting jury selection, New Yorkers Paul and Catherine covertly take stock of each other. She reading Wuthering Heights, he looking every inch the dapper Wall Street type. What starts as nothing more than a brief encounter becomes more serious, and soon a life-changing decision must be faced. André Aciman is a romantic with a melancholy soul and an eye for detail that makes his fiction read as if real. Of Thorn and Briar Paul Lamb Simon & Schuster, £20 "It is during the shortening days of the autumn months, when the September mists return and the morning dew settles on the pastures once more, that the hedger begins his work." So writes Paul Lamb, for 30 years a hedgelayer in the west country, who lives in a converted horse box. An enlightening and beautifully told monthly journal of following an ancient craft, and the benefits it brings to the countryside. Uncommon Ground: Rethinking Our Relationship with the Countryside Patrick Galbraith William Collins, £22 According to popular belief, access to the countryside in England is highly restricted, while in Scotland, with its Right To Roam legislation, the situation is idyllic. In this hard-hitting account, Patrick Galbraith sets out to destroy the clichés surrounding this inflammatory subject. Making a point of talking to "people who are often forgotten" - among them salmon poachers on the Isle of Lewis, grassroots activists, and much-loathed landowners - he shows that land access is much more nuanced than provocative headlines suggest. Not only are things far from perfect here, but in England there is better access than many people realise. Galbraith's informed and passionate analysis of those tussling over the land is essential reading for anyone with opinions on the countryside. Back in the Day Oliver Lovrenski Trans. Nichola Smalley Hamish Hamilton, £14.99 Back in the Day by Oliver Lovrenski (Image: Hamish Hamilton) On publication in Norway in 2023, Oliver Lovrenski's debut novel Back in the Day swiftly became a bestseller. Norway's Trainspotting is a deep dive into the chaos, terror, and black humour of teenagers locked in a cycle of deprivation. Ivor and Marco, who live in Oslo, have been on the downward slope since they were 13 when they started getting high. At 14 they were dealing drugs, and a year later began carrying knives. This bleak tale, told with brio, offers a fresh take on what it is to be young in an environment where a positive future is but a dream. The Einstein Vendetta: Hitler, Mussolini and a Murder That Haunts History Thomas Harding Michael Joseph, £22 Robert Einstein, Albert's cousin, lived with his family in a villa near Florence. One summer's day in 1944, while he was safely in hiding, a unit of soldiers arrived at the villa. When they left, 12 hours later, Robert's wife and children were dead. Their murder has never been solved, but in this scrupulously researched account, Thomas Harding takes on this notorious case, asking who ordered the killings, and why was no-one brought to account? The Eights Joanna Miller Fig Tree, £16.99 In 1920 Oxford University finally admitted female undergraduates. Joanna Miller's debut novel follows a group of young women, all living in rooms on Corridor Eight, who become close friends. From varied backgrounds - privileged, hard-up, politically engaged - all are hopeful of what lies ahead. All, too, are scarred by the recent war. With an influenza pandemic terrorising Europe, their time in Oxford promises to be eventful. Victory '45: The End of the War in Six Surrenders James Holland and Al Murray Bantam, £22 To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, James Holland and Al Murray have joined forces to illuminate how peace was finally achieved. Between May and September 1945 there were six surrenders: four in Europe, two in Japan. Describing the events leading to each, and telling the stories of the people involved, from generals and political leaders to service men and women and civilians, Victory '45 memorably brings history, and those who made it, to life.
The Herald Scotland
23-04-2025
- General
- The Herald Scotland
We cherish Scotland's right to roam but our freedom is a myth
Red Pockets: An Offering Alice Mah Allen Lane, £20 One of the most unusual and powerful books I've read in a long time. Chinese Canadian-British writer Alice Mah is Professor of Urban and Environmental Studies at the University of Glasgow. Red Pockets – the red envelopes used in China to give money to family and clan members – describes her return to her ancestral village in South China, and the reverberations of that disturbing visit. In a soul-searching narrative that charts her escalating despair over the global climate emergency, she addresses the ways in which the world's plight is connected with unresolved issues from the past. Drawing on the cultural and economic histories of China, Canada, England and Scotland, Mah navigates her own fretful response to her family history and her fears for the future. Clear-eyed and sensitive, Red Pockets is a moving and imaginative memoir of facing up to the wrongs of the past, at the same time asking what we owe to previous generations, and to those who will inherit this planet from us. A Granite Silence (Image: free) A Granite Silence Nina Allan riverrun, £20 The murder in Aberdeen in 1934 of eight-year-old Helen Priestley horrified the nation and had a shattering impact on the over-crowded tenement community where she lived. In this closely researched account, Nina Allan creatively explores the many elements exposed by this dreadful crime. Wild Fictions Amitav Ghosh Faber & Faber, £25 In the run-up to the Iraq War, Indian-born novelist Amitav Ghosh clashed with a well-known American editor, who refused to see the USA as anything but a benign and altruistic force. In the years since he has produced a drawerful of highly-researched pieces, now brought together in this collection. Covering some of the most pressing subjects in recent decades, from 9/11, the ongoing legacy of imperialism, Hurricane Katrina, the refugee crisis and disasters such as the 2004 Indonesian tsunami - the natural and the political cannot be separated, he argues - this is an unflinching portrait of our times from a refreshingly original perspective. Room on the Sea André Aciman Faber & Faber, £12.99 Meeting while awaiting jury selection, New Yorkers Paul and Catherine covertly take stock of each other. She reading Wuthering Heights, he looking every inch the dapper Wall Street type. What starts as nothing more than a brief encounter becomes more serious, and soon a life-changing decision must be faced. André Aciman is a romantic with a melancholy soul and an eye for detail that makes his fiction read as if real. Read more Of Thorn and Briar Paul Lamb Simon & Schuster, £20 'It is during the shortening days of the autumn months, when the September mists return and the morning dew settles on the pastures once more, that the hedger begins his work.' So writes Paul Lamb, for 30 years a hedgelayer in the west country, who lives in a converted horse box. An enlightening and beautifully told monthly journal of following an ancient craft, and the benefits it brings to the countryside. Back in the Day Oliver Lovrenski Trans. Nichola Smalley Hamish Hamilton, £14.99 On publication in Norway in 2023, Oliver Lovrenski's debut novel Back in the Day swiftly became a bestseller. Norway's Trainspotting is a deep dive into the chaos, terror and black humour of teenagers locked in a cycle of deprivation. Ivor and Marco, who live in Oslo, have been on the downward slope since they were 13, when they started getting high. At 14 they were dealing drugs, and a year later began carrying knives. This bleak tale, told with brio, offers a fresh take on what it is to be young in an environment where a positive future is but a dream. Hitler and Mussolini (Image: free) The Einstein Vendetta: Hitler, Mussolini and a Murder That Haunts History Thomas Harding Michael Joseph, £22 Robert Einstein, Albert's cousin, lived with his family in a villa near Florence. One summer's day in 1944, while he was safely in hiding, a unit of soldiers arrived at the villa. When they left, 12 hours later, Robert's wife and children were dead. Their murder has never been solved, but in this scrupulously researched account, Thomas Harding takes on this notorious case, asking who ordered the killings, and why was no-one brought to account? The Eights Joanna Miller Fig Tree, £16.99 In 1920 Oxford University finally admitted female undergraduates. Joanna Miller's debut novel follows a group of young women, all living in rooms on Corridor Eight, who become close friends. From varied backgrounds - privileged, hard-up, politically engaged - all are hopeful of what lies ahead. All, too, are scarred by the recent war. With an influenza pandemic terrorising Europe, their time in Oxford promises to be eventful. Victory '45: The End of the War in Six Surrenders James Holland and Al Murray Bantam, £22 To mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two, James Holland and Al Murray have joined forces to illuminate how peace was finally achieved. Between May and September 1945 there were six surrenders: four in Europe, two in Japan. Describing the events leading to each, and telling the stories of the people involved, from generals and political leaders to service men and women and civilians, Victory '45 memorably brings history, and those who made it, to life.
