The Indian-origin author earned her praise from the Booker judges for the use of the sport of squash as a metaphor for explaining complex human emotions.
Our Bureau
London
The novel ‘Western Lane’ makes it to the list of 13 books for the 2023 Booker Prize longlist, written by London-based Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo. ‘Western Lane’ is one of four debut novels that make up this year’s ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 longlisted books.
“Skilfully deploying the sport of squash as both context and metaphor, ‘Western Lane’ is a deeply evocative debut about a family grappling with grief, conveyed through crystalline language which reverberates like the sound ‘of a ball hit clean and hard… with a close echo’,” said the judging panel of the Booker Prize, chaired by twice Booker-shortlisted Esi Edugyan, a Canadian novelist.
Kenya-born Maroo’s debut novel is very interestingly set within the context of the British Gujarati milieu, which earned her praise from the Booker judges for the use of the sport of squash as a metaphor for explaining complex human emotions. She has set the narrative around the story of an 11-year-old girl named Gopi and her bonds with her family.
Edugyan was accompanied by British actor, writer, and director Adjoa Andoh; Hong Kong Chinese poet, lecturer, editor, and critic Mary Jean Chan; American author and professor James Shapiro; and British actor and writer Robert Webb on the judging panel. The ‘Booker Dozen’ was selected out of 163 books published between October 2022 and September 2023 and submitted by publishers.
