The Man Booker International Prize celebrates translated fiction at its finest. Now an annual prize awarded to a single novel or collection of short stories, it can truly highlight the best of translated fiction from around the world. Both the writer and the translator will be rewarded equally for their contribution, showcasing the crucial role they each play in the finished book.
The full shortlist of six titles can be found here, but in this series of articles we will look at each title in detail.
A General Theory of Oblivion
A wild patchwork of a novel, which tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence. For the next 30 years she lives off vegetables and pigeons, and burns her furniture to stay warm. But the outside world seeps in, through snippets on the radio, voices from next door, glimpses of a man fleeing his pursuers and a note attached to a bird’s foot…
Have you read A General Theory of Oblivion? You can leave a review or add the book to your group’s reading list.
Want to know more? Download our reading notes for A General Theory of Oblivion, including information about the author and translator, as well as some discussion questions about the book.
Want ideas on what to read next? We’ve created a supporting booklist with suggestions of other books that have links to the themes of A General Theory of Oblivion, including Angolan independence, civil war, societal change and agoraphobia.
A word from the Unfresh Graduates
Peterborough Book Club for Unfresh Graduates is one of the reading groups who are shadowing the Prize this year, and are reading A General Theory of Oblivion.
“Peterborough Book Club for Unfresh Graduates is a recently formed group of twenty-somethings who want to engage with and discuss all sorts of genres, including non-fiction, graphic novels and modern classics. We meet once a month and we have so far reviewed The Man in the High Castle, Slaughterhouse-five and Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. As we’re all faced with insurmountable amounts of student debt, free book donations are greatly appreciated…”
Get involved
Join in the conversation on Twitter using #MBI2016, you can also follow translator Daniel Hahn and publisher Harvill Secker on Twitter.
Keep up with all the latest news on the Man Booker International Prize website, and on Instagram.
