Writer Batuman named on Booker International jury

ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

American-Turkish writer Elif Batuhan is one of the jury members for the prestigious Man Booker prize.

Renowned American-Turkish writer Elif Batuman has been named on the jury of five for the Man Booker International prize this year. The prize will be awarded on May 22 in London.

Speaking to Anatolia news agency, Batuman said this was a great honor and privilege for her, adding that the writers on the jury had been chosen for their literary success, not because of their political views. She said she wrote not to win awards, but simply to write good books.

The shortlist for this year’s prize is made up of U. R. Ananthamurthy (India), Aharon Appelfeld (Israel), Lydia Davis (U.S.), Intizar Husain (Pakistan), Yan Lianke (China), Marie NDiaye (France), Josip Novakovich (Canada), Marilynne Robinson (U.S.), Vladimir Sorokin (Russia) and Peter Stamm (Switzerland). That means a total of nine different countries are represented.

Elif Batuman was born in New York and lives in Istanbul, where she is writer-in-residence at Koç University. She has been a regular contributor to the New Yorker since 2006, and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.

Batuman’s book
Her first book, “The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them” (2010), was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award and a runner-up for a PEN/Diamondstein-Spielvogel Award. It was also longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award. Her essays, articles and criticism have appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New York Times Book Review, the London Review of Books, the Guardian, Harper’s and n+1.