Congratulations to In Memory of Memory, Shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize
The winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize was announced yesterday. While we were rooting for Maria Stepanova and Sasha Dugdale—the brilliant author and translator duo behind In Memory of Memory—we send our warmest congratulations to At Night All Blood Is Black: written by David Diop and translated from French by Anna Moschovakis, and published by Pushkin Press (UK) and Farrar, Strauss and Giroux (North America). The £50,000 prize will be split between Diop and Moschovakis, giving the author and translator equal recognition.
We are honoured to be the Canadian publisher of In Memory of Memory, which Elif Batuman calls a “luminous, rigorous, and mesmerizing interrogation of the relationship between personal history, family history, and capital-H History… In Memory of Memory has that trick of feeling both completely original and already classic.” The 2021 International Booker Prize jury has this to say about the book:
“An unclassifiable, sui generis book that begins with what you think is going to be a family history, then opens up, in slow degrees, to allow seemingly the whole world to enter. In its seamless fusion of history, memory, essay, meditation, literary criticism it creates its own indelible form, a new shape in the air. An act of truth-telling like no other.”
On Tuesday, May 25th, Stepanova and Dugdale took part in Things We Can’t Remember, Things We Can’t Forget, the fifth in a series of events celebrating this year’s International Booker Prize shortlist. The event featured a conversation between Stepanova, Dugdale, and BBC journalist and author Allan Little, as well as a reading from In Memory of Memory, performed by actor Fiona Shaw and directed by Blanche McIntyre on behalf of the Royal Shakespeare Company. You can watch—or rewatch!—the event here.
This marvellous book has received such warm and generous attention since its release, and we look forward to sharing it with many more readers. In Memory of Memory is available to order from our online shop or from your local independent bookstore.
