The judges for the Man Booker Prize have never been known for their sense of humor. Funny novels seldom win the award; the most recent winner described as comic was Howard Jacobson’s The Finkler Question in 2010, but its comedy was sour and intermittent. The 2015 prize selections were no exception to this history of humorlessness. In fact the most successful joke came from two of the titles—Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life is 720 pages long, and, at 688 pages, Marlon James’s A Brief History of Seven Killings is brief only by contrast. It feels even longer than Yanagihara’s book if only because about half of its content is written in Jamaican patois. These books are not just long, they are harrowing. They constitute a parade of horrors—in A Little Life most of them happen to one man, while in A Brief History they pervade a society. But this is not exceptional in a year when the six novels on the short list were all, in the words of the chair of the judges’ panel, “pretty grim. There’s a tremendous amount of violence in these books. If you just told the plot it would be unbelievably grim.” He went on to offer the explanation, “you can think of it as a portrait of where we are.” Of course judgments about “where we are” are relative to who we are, and the judges who seemingly endorsed this assessment (the decision to award James the prize for his long and blood-drenched novel was reportedly quick and unanimous) were Chair Michael Wood, an Englishman and emeritus professor at Princeton; Ellah Alfrey OBE, a critic and editor; Frances Osborne, the author of several biographies and one novel; Sam Leith, literary editor of the Spectator; and John Burnside, an author of poetry and fiction. In some previous years the majority of practicing authors and critics has been leavened by a celebrity—a comedian, actor, or Member of Parliament—but this year every judge was a serious, bookish appointment. The Booker process occurs in three steps. The first, after some months of mentioning and predicting, occurs when the judges announce the long list. The 2015 long list was made public on July 28. It included thirteen books; of these the largest contingent consisted of five American authors. There were three British authors, a Nigerian, an Indian, a New Zealander, a Moroccan,

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2016 年布克奖

曼布克奖的评委们从未以幽默感着称。搞笑小说很少获奖；最近被描述为喜剧的赢家是 2010 年霍华德·雅各布森 (Howard Jacobson) 的《芬克勒问题》(The Finkler Question)，但它的喜剧酸涩且断断续续。2015 年的奖项评选也不例外，这段历史没有幽默感。事实上，最成功的笑话来自其中两个书名——柳原涵雅的《小小生命》有 720 页长，而马龙·詹姆斯的《七杀简史》则有 688 页，只是相比之下很简短。感觉比柳原的书还要长，因为它大约有一半的内容是用牙买加方言写的。这些书不仅长，而且令人痛心。它们构成了恐怖的游行——在《小小人生》中，大多数发生在一个人身上，而在《简史》中，它们遍布整个社会。但这在今年入围的六部小说，用评委团主席的话说，“相当严峻。这些书中有大量的暴力。如果你只是告诉情节，那将是令人难以置信的严峻。” 他接着解释说，“你可以把它想象成我们所处的位置的画像。” 当然，关于“我们在哪里”的判断与我们是谁有关，而似乎支持这种评估的评委（据报道，决定授予詹姆斯长篇淋漓的长篇小说奖是迅速而一致的）是迈克尔伍德主席，英国人，普林斯顿名誉教授；Ellah Alfrey OBE，评论家和编辑；Frances Osborne，多部传记和一部小说的作者；Sam Leith，《旁观者》的文学编辑；和约翰·伯恩赛德，诗歌和小说作家。在前几年，大多数在职作家和评论家都是由名人（喜剧演员、演员或议员）任命的，但今年每位法官都是严肃的、书卷气的任命。布克过程分三步进行。第一个，经过几个月的提及和预测，在评委宣布长名单时发生。2015年长名单于7月28日公布，共收录13本书；其中最大的队伍由五名美国作家组成。有三位英国作家，一位尼日利亚人，一位印度人，一位新西兰人，一位摩洛哥人，布克过程分三步进行。第一个，经过几个月的提及和预测，在评委宣布长名单时发生。2015年长名单于7月28日公布，共收录13本书；其中最大的队伍由五名美国作家组成。有三位英国作家，一位尼日利亚人，一位印度人，一位新西兰人，一位摩洛哥人，布克过程分三步进行。第一个，经过几个月的提及和预测，在评委宣布长名单时发生。2015年长名单于7月28日公布，共有十三本书；其中最大的队伍由五名美国作家组成。有三位英国作家，一位尼日利亚人，一位印度人，一位新西兰人，一位摩洛哥人，