Booker Prize 2023: Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo’s debut novel ‘Western Lane’shortlisted

livemint.com:

Booker Prize 2023 judging panel Thursday announced the final list of six novels from 13 longlisted titles – the so-called “Booker dozen" – which were selected from 163 books published between October last year and September this year. All the six shortlisted books "showcase the breadth of what world literature can do", BBC reported Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan, who chairs the judging panel, as saying. London-based Indian-origin author Chetna Maroo’s debut novel ‘Western Lane’ was among the shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize in London.

The others are: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch (Ireland), The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (Ireland), Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein (Canada), If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery (US) and This Other Eden by Paul Harding (US). ‘Western Lane’ by Chetna Maroo revolves around the story of an 11-year-old British Gujarati girl named Gopi and her bonds with her family. The novel explores an immigrant father's attempts to raise his family as a single parent.

Booker judges praised the book for its use of the sport of squash as a metaphor for complex human emotions. “Chetna Maroo’s deeply evocative debut of 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’. It is stunning and it stays with you," PTI quoted Edugyan as saying while announcing the shortlist.

Kenya-born Maroo said it would be fair to call ‘Western Lane’ as a “sports novel". “It’s also been called a coming-of-age novel, a domestic novel, a novel about grief, a novel about the immigrant experience. Recently a friend asked me if the book has something of the detective story about it, with Gopi trying to find her way, piecing together