Olga Tokarczuk wins the 2018 Man Booker International Prize

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, has been announced as the winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2018. The £50,000 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world, has been divided equally between its author and translator. They have also both received a further £1,000 for being shortlisted. Flights is a novel of linked fragments, from the 17th century to the present day, connected by themes of travel and human anatomy.

‘Our deliberations were hardly easy, since our shortlist was such a strong one. But I’m very pleased to say that we decided on the great Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk as our winner: Tokarczuk is a writer of wonderful wit, imagination and literary panache. In Flights, brilliantly translated by Jennifer Croft, by a series of startling juxtapositions she flies us through a galaxy of departures and arrivals, stories and digressions, all the while exploring matters close to the contemporary and human predicament – where only plastic escapes mortality.’ Lisa Appignanesi OBE, chair of judges It was selected from 108 submissions by a panel of five judges, chaired by Lisa Appignanesi OBE, author and cultural commentator, and consisting of: Michael Hofmann, poet, reviewer and translator from German; Hari Kunzru, author of five novels including The Impressionist and White Tears; Tim Martin, journalist and literary critic, and Helen Oyeyemi, author of novels, plays and short stories includingThe Icarus Girl.