Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o has become the first writer to be nominated for the International Booker prize as both author and translator of the same book, and the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. The 83-year-old Kenyan and perennial Nobel favourite is among 13 authors nominated for the award for best translated fiction, a £50,000 prize split evenly between author and translator. Thiong’o wrote novels like A Grain of Wheat and Petals of Blood in English until the 1970s, when he resolved to write in his mother tongue. And Russia’s Maria Stepanova is nominated for her history of her family, In Memory of Memory. Photograph: Ariel GrinbergChinese author Can Xue is the only author to have been nominated before; this time she is listed for her short story collection I Live in the Slums.

Source: The Guardian March 30, 2021 07:52 UTC