Gerbrand Bakker has become the first Dutch writer to win the International Impac Dublin Literary Award from a shortlist of seven other titles including Joseph O'Neill's Netherland.
Bakker (48) won the world’s richest literary prize for a single work of fiction after a long selection process begun late last year when more than 160 titles were nominated by libraries across the world.
The judging panels narrowed that entry down to eight works. His winning novel, The Twin, in which the narrator, Helmer, deals with the reasons behind his personal isolation, is a further endorsement of the quality of contemporary European literary fiction and it reiterates the major contribution this award continues to make to international fiction.
Still living on the family farm where he grew up, he is now dealing with the final days of his widower father, formerly a domestic tyrant now bedridden, a store of memories and the dawning realisation of his own mortality. Adding to his complications is the reappearance of the woman to whom Henk, his long-dead twin, had once been engaged. Reit now a widow with two grown daughters, has a problem in the form of a wayward teenage son, also named Henk. She asks Helmer to help with the boy.
Of the many qualities Bakker brings to his consummately human and subtle tale is the ironic narrative voice which has been brilliantly rendered in David Colmer’s English translation. The win was expected as the novel, one of only three titles in translation on the short list, has emerged as a popular work impressing literary critics and general readers. Originally published in Holland in 2006, the English language translation from Secker Harvill, first appeared in 2008 and the paperback edition from Vintage was published last year.
At a presentation in Dublin tonight Bakker accepted the prize and instead of a lengthy address offered a musical thank you in the form of a romantic ballad, ‘Where is the Sun’ that had represented the Netherlands in the 1994 Eurovision song contest. Asked why this choice? Bakker, laconic and to the point replied: ”I think it’s a good song.”
The winning author chose not to sing the song, instead a tape was played. It was the first time in the award’s 15 year history that such an acceptance had been made. It was an unusual gesture, but then, Gerbrand Bakker is an unusual man who makes no secret of his love of his country.
The Bakker win is significant on several counts: a good shortlist had been selected from an outstanding longlist of submissions that included two major Chinese novels; Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem and Ma Jian's Bejing Coma. Neither made it to the shortlist. Bakker's major threats came from Pulitzer Prize winning Marilynne Robinson for Home and the Irish writer Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, a novel that had been expected to win the 2008 Booker prize but failed to make that shortlist, subsequently was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel award and has been praised by Barrack Obama.
Last night's win should hasten the translation into English of Bakker's other books, as well as his forthcoming novel, The Detour, due out in the Netherlands in October. Also important is the emphasis this Impac win places on the role of the translator. Bakker's translator, David Colmer, collects €25,000 of the €100,000 prize.
Recent Impac Dublin shortlists have revealed an increasing dominance of English language titles. Last year, only two of the novels were in translation. Several previous winners including Australian David Malouf, Scots Canadian Alistair MacLeod and Ireland’s Colm Toibin as well as the two less highly profiled US winners, Edward P. Jones and Michael Thomas, all won with English language books, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award has consistently heightened our awareness of the global range and diversity of the novel. For this it should be celebrated.
