Translated by Ross Benjamin
Marieke Lucas Rijneveld's acceptance speech was delivered online due to Covid-19
The Dutch debut novelist Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, also a part-time dairy farmer, professed to be 'as happy as a cow with seven udders' upon winning the prize for The Discomfort of Evening, translated by Michele Hutchison.
Rijneveld, who uses they/them personal pronouns, won with a dark novel about siblings, death and family disintegration. It was informed by their own upbringing in a Reformed church dairy farming family in the rural Netherlands. The author took six years to write the novel, which was partly inspired by the death of their brother when Rijneveld was three. Hutchison, who is English but lives in Amsterdam, has translated 20 books from Dutch and, ironically given The Discomfort’s subject matter, is co-author of a successful parenting book called The Happiest Kids in the World.
Translated by Ross Benjamin
Translated by Sophie Hughes
Translated by Fiona Mackintosh Iona Macintyre
Translated by Michele Hutchison
By Yoko Ogawa
Translated by Stephen Snyder
The 2020 International Booker Prize for Fiction in translation was a live streamed event due to the lockdown restrictions of Covid-19. BBC’s Razia Iqbal hosted the virtual celebration and we hear from International Booker Prize Administrator, Fiammetta Rocco, Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, Mark Damazer, as well as Chair of the 2020 judges Ted Hodgkinson.
Watch the live reaction from the winners as Ted Hodgkinson informs them of their win, listen to their acceptance speeches and hear the comments from the other members of the 2020 judging panel, including Lucie Campos, Jennifer Croft, Valeria Luiselli and Jeet Thayil.