Israeli writer David Grossman, and his translator Jessica Cohen, won the Man Booker International on Wednesday for A Horse Walks Into A Bar. They will split the £50,000 winnings between them.
The novel is centred on a comedian and his stand-up routine, in which he goes off the rails and reveals a traumatic incident from his childhood.
He beat another Israeli author Amos Oz, who was nominated for Judas, and four other writers – France’s Mathias Enard for Compass, Norwegian writer Roy Jacobsen for The Unseen, Danish author Dorthe Nors’ for Mirror, and Argentina’s Samantha Schweblin for Fever Dream.
The novel has received high praise. “We were bowled over by Grossman’s willingness to take emotional as well as stylistic risks: every sentence counts, every word matters in this supreme example of the writer’s craft,” said Nick Barley, chair of judges and director of the Edinburgh international book festival. “David Grossman has attempted an ambitious high-wire act of a novel, and he’s pulled it off spectacularly,” he said.
Grossman is an acclaimed writer of fiction, non-fiction and children’s books. His work has been translated into 36 languages.
Last year, the prize was given to South Korean author Han Kang and translator Deborah Smith for The Vegetarian.
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