Olga Ravn's 'The Employees' Shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021
Olga Ravn's The Employees, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (Lolli Editions), has been shortlisted for the International Booker Prize 2021. Structured as a series of witness statements compiled by a workplace commission, the “beautiful and moving” tale follows the crew of the Six-Thousand Ship which consists of "those who were born, and those who were made, those who will die, and those who will not". The judges said, “In deceptively simple prose, threaded on a fully achieved and ambitiously experimental structure, it asks big questions about sentience and the nature of humanity.”
There are six books in the running for this year’s prize, which celebrates the finest fiction from around the world, translated into English. The contribution of both author and translator is given equal recognition, with the £50,000 prize split evenly between them. The 2021 International Booker Prize winner will be announced on 2nd June 2021 in an online ceremony from Coventry, UK City of Culture 2021.
Click here to browse the full shortlist.