Israeli author David Grossman’s latest work, “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,” won the Man Booker International Prize, the foundation that awards the literary honour announced on Wednesday.
The £50,000 award, which recognises fiction from around the world that is translated into English, will be split between Grossman and Jessica Cohen, who translated the book.
Grossman is the first Israeli to win the prize, one of the most important annual literary awards. This year, two Israelis were among the 13 authors who made the long list for the prize. Amos Oz was nominated for “Judas,” translated by Nicholas de Lange, his first novel in a decade.
Nick Barley, the chair of the Man Booker Prize’s 2017 judging panel, said the book “shines a spotlight on the effects of grief, without any hint of sentimentality.
“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,” Barley commented.