An Early Sketch of Literary Novelty
A preliminary appraisal of contemporary fiction chosen for big honors
As the author of a tiny chapbook of connected flash fiction stories which follows a couple through their early careers, marriage, difficult life changes, divorce and a longing for each other that threads their lifetime’s journey together, I am pleasantly surprised that one of the books that made the Booker Prize 2023 Shortlist is American Jonathan Escoffery’s collection of short stories If I Survive You. When the shortlist was announced a couple of weeks ago, the literary world found out that it was the only collection that made the list of 6 books, curated from an initial pool of one hundred and sixty plus contenders. “We read 163 novels across seven months, and in that time whole worlds opened to us. We were transported to early 20th-century Maine and Penang, to the vibrant streets of Lagos and the squash courts of London, to the blackest depths of the Atlantic, and into a dystopic Ireland where the terrifying loss of rights comes as a hard warning,” said judging chair Esi Edugyan. The judging panel comprised, besides the twice-shortlisted novelist Edugyan, the actor Adjoa Andoh, poet Mary Jean Chan, Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro and the actor and author Robert Webb.
Jonathan Escoffery’s debut collection lets the short stories move back and forth through geography and time following a Jamaican family in Miami. If I Survive You teeters between the idea of identity as a united configuration and one that fluctuates. I find an eerie similarity and contrast between this book and the Nebula Award 2023 winning short-story The Rabbit Test, though in genre and field they are worlds apart. Published by Uncanny, Samantha Mill’s short-story The Rabbit Test is a captivating tale where the protagonist Grace, a teen in 2091, is ignorant of her body and tries to find several answers. It is focused on pregnancy testing and abortion justice, obviously influenced by Roe v. Wade, but the title takes from the “rabbit test” that was a commonly used bioassay to test for pregnancy around 1949, where the rabbit had to be dissected to confirm pregnancy. Thus, both Escoffery’s collection and this short-story take on very 2023 topics, but examine them with a contemporary societal, and a historical lens respectively. I also recognize that both have a pattern of assimilating real events and choosing to base fiction upon those events. This opens the path for interesting literary exploration in the coming years and as an emerging writer, I am happy and excited for these changes. Similarly, it is heartening to note that it is a palpable deviation from themes such as coming of age, power, heroism, evil, prejudice and family, that were popular until recently. Certainly, these choices of subjects by Jonathan Escoffery and Samantha Mills appear promising.
Meanwhile, reports in India suggest that Salman Rushdie is a frontrunner for the Nobel Prize in literature this year. Of course, Rushdie has featured prominently in discourses around literature in India for many decades now, whether for good or unfortunate reasons. I mean, he is well known, who hasn’t heard of Midnight’s Children and the fatwa on him? But reports claim, because of the recent attack on him, if Rushdie is conferred the Nobel Prize, it’d send out a message that literature and free expression survives in spite of all the attacks. Similarly, eighty-year-old defiant Russian novelist and short story writer, currently in self-exile in Germany, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, is also said to be in the reckoning for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Most recently, she published a brief note Pain, Fear, Shame in response to and coinciding with when the Russian aggression against Ukraine began in 2022. Not surprisingly, literary circles in India are also putting Jamaica Kincaid in contention, for her extensive exploration of race and identity. In any alternative, the variety of literary styles and voices on the probable list is inspiring.
Finally, I am happy that the world of literature is at least working as a team, to counter the hopelessness elsewhere, in economy and politics, as average incomes continue to shrink across the globe and freedoms continue to be curbed.
In the flash fiction community and internet publishing world, of which I am a tiny part, we are also celebrating nomination season as a team. The year’s opening set, the Best of the Net (where September 30 is the deadline by which nomination is filed) lists were announced by different magazines and journals. We’re looking at the rest of the season in awe and appreciation as we await the nomination lists for the Pushcart Prize, Best Microfiction Anthology and so on.
Mostly, therefore, creativity and expression are still alive and kicking.
