This is the second year that the Man Booker International Prize has been awarded to a single book in its previous incarnation it honoured a body of work published either originally in English or available in translation in English. Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), Megan McDowell (US), Fever Dream (Oneworld).Amos Oz (Israel), Nicholas de Lange (UK), Judas (Chatto & Windus).Dorthe Nors (Denmark), Misha Hoekstra (US), Mirror, Shoulder, Signal (Pushkin Press).Roy Jacobsen (Norway), Don Bartlett (UK), Don Shaw (UK), The Unseen (Maclehose).David Grossman (Israel), Jessica Cohen (US), A Horse Walks Into a Bar (Jonathan Cape).Mathias Enard (France), Charlotte Mandell (US), Compass (Fitzcarraldo Editions).Two Israeli novels made the shortlist this year: An unforgettable, bold novel by David Grossman, beautifully translated into the English language by Jessica Cohen.’

‘Written with empathy, wisdom and emotional intelligence,’ the continued, ‘ A Horse Walks into a Bar is a mesmerising meditation on the opposite forces shaping our lives: humour and sorrow, loss and hope, cruelty and compassion, and how even in the darkest hours we find the courage to carry on. The judges called the book ‘an extraordinary story that soars in the hands of a master storyteller’.

‘We were bowled over by Grossman’s willingness to take emotional as well as stylistic risks: every sentence counts, every word matters in this supreme example of the writer’s craft.’ The central character is challenging and flawed, but completely compelling. A Horse Walks into a Bar shines a spotlight on the effects of grief, without any hint of sentimentality. He has won a number of international awards, including the French Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, the Buxtehuder Bulle in Germany, Rome’s Premio per la Pace e l’Azione Umanitaria, the Frankfurt Peace Prize and Israel’s Emet Prize.Ī Horse Walks Into a Bar was selected from 126 books by a panel of five judges: Nick Barley (chair), Daniel Hahn, Elif Shafak, Chika Unigwe and Helen Mort.īarley said: ‘David Grossman has attempted an ambitious high-wire act of a novel, and he’s pulled it off spectacularly. Grossman writes fiction, non-fiction and children’s literature, and his work has been translated into 36 languages. They have also received a further £1,000 each for being shortlisted. The Man Booker International Prize celebrates the finest global fiction in translation, and Grossman will share the £50,000 prize with the book’s translator, Jessica Cohen. Set in a small Israeli town, the novel is the story of a standup comedian’s public breakdown, and is described as a ‘shocking and breathtaking read’. Bestselling Israeli writer David Grossman has won the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for his ‘ambitious high-wire act of a novel’, A Horse Walks Into a Bar.

A horse walks into a bar review