Marieke Lucas Rijneveld,born in 1991,becomes the youngest writer to win the International Booker Prize in award’s 15 years long history.Marieke Lucas Rijneveld hails from a farming family of Netherlands and still works on a farm.The young writer who uses the pronoun “they” to refer herself earned the prestigious prize for their debut novel The Discomfort of Evening.Translated into English,The Discomfort of Evening,tells the story of a child “Jas”who struggles to deal with the realities emerged after the death of her brother.
The novel begins with a young girl Jas angry for not being allowed to accompany her brother to ice-skating. In a rage, she wishes death upon him. And then, the hastily-thought wish comes true. He dies.Marieke Lucas Rijneveld 29,also becomes first Dutch to win prestigious prize.Besides the grand debut novel, they have published two collections of poems.The Discomfort of Evening, translated by Michele Hutchison was shortlisted in for the International Booker Prize in April,2020.A best-seller in Netherlands heralds a great entrance on the stage of world literature.
Here are different reviews which underscore the strength of youg writer’s imaginative power and strength of storytelling.
“Impressive. . . . It is the strange, haunting observations through which the child, Jas, tries to make sense of the grown-up world that gives this novel of grief its particular power. A book to read―and to remember.”―The Economist
“The effects of the unspeakable grief felt by 10-year-old Jas’ family after the death of her beloved older brother are explored in painful and painstaking detail in this startling debut novel. . . . Rijneveld’s extraordinary narrator describes a small world of pain which is hard to look at and harder to ignore.”―Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Rijneveld’s International Booker Prize–shortlisted debut is not a novel for those expecting triumphal outcomes. Readers who can persist through the agonies of a family falling apart, however, will find their breath taken away by Rijneveld’s prose as filtered through Hutchison’s deft translation.“―Booklist, starred review
“Rijneveld’s head-turning debut, a bestseller in their native Netherlands and a Booker International Prize nominee, puts a contemporary spin on classic wrath-of-God literature. . . . the translation’s soaring lyricism offers mercy for the reader.”―Publishers Weekly
“An intensely raw, memorable debut . . . . There is a bold beauty to the book, which for all its modernity seems to be set in a different age of automatic religious belief: the immensity and mystery of the universe coexisting alongside the claustrophobic community of farm, church and school. By using Jas’s everyday world as a metaphor for loneliness and fear, Rijneveld has created something exceptional.”―Financial Times (UK)
“The most talked-about debut novel of 2020 already. . . . Absolutely compelling. . . . Brutal and vivid.”―Dazed (UK)
“Translator Michele Hutchison deftly switches between registers and gives Jas a strong, unique voice . . . [with] poetic, mannered language, realistic bleakness and descent into surreal darkness.”―The Guardian (UK)
“Remarkable. . . . Confident in its brutality, yet contained rather than gratuitous, [The Discomfort of Evening] introduces readers to both a memorably off-key narrator and a notable new talent.”―The Observer (UK)
“Thanks to a fine translation by Michele Hutchison, English readers can experience the novel’s heady imagery and sensory language . . . . A visceral portrait of a devout family dealing with grief and the result is both haunting and beautiful.”―Monocle (UK)
“The electricity in this book comes from the use of that blank narrative style to deliver a sort of Grand Guignol grotesquerie.”―The Times (UK)
“Rijneveld’s language renders the world anew, revealing the shocks and violence of early youth through the prism of a Dutch dairy farm. The strangeness of a child looking at the strangeness of the world.”―International Booker Prize judges’
