David Szalay, author of Hungarian origin shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize

David Szalay, a writer of Hungarian descent has been shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction, with his novel All That Man Is, prae.hu reports. The shortlist was revealed on Tuesday in London.

David Szalay was born in Canada in 1974 to a Hungarian father and a Canadian mother, and he grew up in London. According to telegraph.co.uk, he now resides in Pécs, Hungary. All That Man Is is his fourth novel.

The Telegraph praised Szalay as an author who “not only perceives the banal, everyday world in an acute and photographic way but he can also translate it into high-definition prose. Szalay is in pursuit of the feel of a specific moment, whether that feel is lyrical or mundane. It is one of the many ironies of his work that it brings a sensory richness to the bleak and the drab. All That Man Is is a showcase for Szalay’s virtuosic range…”

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Nine men. Each of them at a different stage of life, each of them away from home, and each of them striving – in the suburbs of Prague, beside a Belgian motorway, in a cheap Cypriot hotel – to understand just what it means to be alive, here and now. Tracing an arc from the spring of youth to the winter of old age, All That Man Is brings these separate lives together to show us men as they are – ludicrous and inarticulate, shocking and despicable; vital, pitiable, hilarious, and full of heartfelt longing. As the men get older, the stakes become bewilderingly high in this piercing portrayal of 21st-century manhood. (unitedagents.co.uk)

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The Man Booker Prize was first awarded in 1969. Since 2014, any author who wrote a book in English is eligible to be nominated, regardless of nationality. Besides David Szalay, the 2016 Man Booker Prize shortlist includes Paul Beatty, Deborah Levy, Graeme Macrae Burnet, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Madeleine Thien.

The winner will be revealed on October 25. According to themanbookerprize.com, the shortlisted authors each receive 2,500 pounds, and the winner receives an additional 50,000, as well as international recognition as the recipient of the leading literary award of the English speaking world.

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Last year saw Hungarian success at the Man Booker International Prize, where Hungarian writer László Krasznahorkai took the award. The prize at the time was awarded to a writer whose works were available in English, in recognition of his entire oeuvre rather than a single title, as it has been since 2016. (wikipedia.org)

Photo: unitedagents.co.uk

Copy editor: bm

Source: prae.hu, telegraph.co.uk, themanbookerprize.com, wikipedia.org