La Plage, from 1900, by artist Alfred-Victor Fournier
- Credit: Getty Images
CHARLIE CONNELLY offers his selection of perfect holiday reading, from the latest new European paperbacks
I’m ready for the holidays. I’ve a clean vest ironed, a selection of handkerchiefs knotted in each corner to protect me from the sun’s harmful rays and I’ve been practising rolling up my trouser legs to mid-calf level for a couple of weeks now. This guy is, let me tell you, beach body ready.
In this state of demob happiness my thoughts have travelled via brown ale, whelks and sticks of rock to beach reading. Last month I revealed here my infallible recipe for good holiday literature: a thriller, an anthology, a literary prizewinner, some poetry and a stone-cold classic novel. I’m particularly looking forward to cracking the spine of some O. Henry short stories and getting sand and bits of ham sandwich between the pages of Dorothy L. Sayers’
EBRD newsletter - Friday 07 May EBRD President makes first visit to Turkey EBRD President Odile Renaud-Basso made her first official visit to Turkey, virtually, on 3 and 4 May. She met representatives of central and municipal authorities, businesses, local banks, international financial institutions, the diplomatic community and civil society. Meetings focused on Turkey’s post-Covid-19 recovery and EBRD investments to support it. Istanbul joins EBRD Green Cities The President’s visit saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, formalising the admission of Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, to the flagship €2.5 billion EBRD Green Cities urban sustainability programme. The Bank and municipality will work together to implement sustainability measures that will benefit the city’s 16 million people.
Winner announced on 1 June 2021 Three novels have been announced as the finalists of the fourth EBRD Literature Prize, a €20,000 award launched in 2017 by the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), in collaboration with the British Council. The EBRD Literature Prize celebrates the very best in translated literature from the almost 40 countries where the Bank invests, from Central and eastern Europe to Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the southern and eastern Mediterranean. The €20,000 Prize is awarded to the best work of literary fiction originally written in a language from one of these countries, which has been translated into English and published by a UK or a Europe-based publisher.
These three novels – from Georgia, Poland and Romania - reflect a range of languages, cultures and styles and tell us stories about lived experiences in the past and present. Read what Toby Lichtig and his fellow judges Ana Aslanyan, Julian Evans and Kirsty Lang have written about these three shortlisted novels for the EBRD Literature Prize 2021.
The Pear Field
Toby Lichtig (Chair of Judges): In an isolated “residential school for the intellectually disabled” on the outskirts of Tbilisi, a group of children – from the very young to the almost adult – traverse a world of abandonment, neglect and abuse. Looking out for one another, while remaining acutely alert to the necessity of individual self-preservation, they run riot, fantasize, scrap and play, while attempting to negotiate the callous adult world. Narrated in a clear, fluid prose – brilliantly captured by Elizabeth Heighway – Nana Ekvtimishvili’s novel is vicious, funny, totally enchanting and te
By Prisca Sam-Duru
Africa’s literary colossus, Professor Ngugi Wa Thiong’o, made history on Tuesday, when he was longlisted among twelve other authors for the 2021 International Booker Prize, as both author and translator of the same book, ‘The Perfect Nine’, as well as the first nominee writing in an indigenous African Language.
With his nomination, Prof Wa Thiong’o, an 83-year-old renowned author of “Weep Not Child”, becomes the first nominee writing in an indigenous African language. A perennial Nobel Prize favourite, the Africa’s literary giant is among 13 authors nominated for the award for best translated fiction, a £50,000 prize split evenly between author and translator.