The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize is named in honour of Tadeusz Bradecki, the international theatre director, actor and writer, and celebrates the books that most excited him.

The prize is not meant to mirror his book The End of Ends (CB editions, 2024 - translated from Koniec końców).

Instead it will applaud works that are just as eclectic, thoughtful and playful.

The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize is an annual award for an imaginative work published in English in the UK or in Europe, that crosses the borders between artistic disciplines, genres, subject matter and cultures. Put simply, it celebrates books in which story-telling fiction and non-fiction writing combine in an original way.

“If a fellow traveller journeying through the Land of Fiction would like to ponder, for a while, the many paths that pass through it, I would consider my intentions had been fulfilled.” — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

Submissions can include prose, poetry, and playwriting, be in any literary genre (for example science fiction and thrillers), and explore subjects such as philosophy, history, geography, politics, art, images and travel. Examples include works such as Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuściński or Civilizations by Laurent Binet.

The three judges for the 2025 prize will be Francis Spufford (Chair), Krzysztof Zanussi and Carole Welch.

"So, we could say that the text chats with another text, imitates it, mocks it and plays with it. Licentiousness reigns in the kingdom of narration. Books meet one another, they travel together, they even sail together to some island – Kythera – there they become lovers, and they have offspring.” — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

Sounds fascinating and great choice of Spufford to chair the judges

Including translations?

Of course.

Also European publishers allowed - although Ireland excepted not sure that is going to catch too many more books (Praspar Press from Malta, corona/samizdat from Slovenia, ?)

Shortlist:
Forgottenness Tanja Maljartschuk
Strangers I Know Claudia Durastanti
The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold Sam Knight
The Maniac Benjamín Labatut
The Modern Fairies Clare Pollard
Childish Literature Alejandro Zambra

Interesting list - I've read three -

1. The Maniac - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

2. Strangers I Know - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

3. Childish Literature - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

I have read The Maniac and Strangers I Know. I have Modern Fairies and immediately picked up Childish literature. The Premonitions Bureau sounds interesting as well but I still have IB and Women's Prize books to get through first.

Sam - there is another book on the list

Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartschuk, tanslated by Zenia Tompkins by Bulluan Press

Which has just been brought to my attention … by the owner of Bulluan Press who is sitting next to Gumble’s Yard and I at the Republic of Consciousness shortlist event!!

Paul wrote: "Sam - there is another book on the list

Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartschuk, tanslated by Zenia Tompkins by Bulluan Press

Which has just been brought to my attention … by the own..."

Thanks Paul. I must have miscopied when I posted the books from the announcement and thought something was odd. All fixed now.

The publisher, Bridget, thought it was very funny we had left her book off - she mentioned it was on the list and GY and I were looking at each other thinking “ummm no it isn’t”.

Paul wrote: "
3. Childish Literature - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show.."

So, having read this, can you give any explanation for what I'd consider a quite odd translation of the title - Literatura infantil (the original title) is usually just a reference to "Children's Literature", like that's what the sign in the Children's section of the bookstore or library in a Spanish-speaking country would say. Child*ish* has an entirely connotation for me (it sounds like literature for adults written in a childish manner, rather than books written for children), and wondering if the book's content has a clue???

I've been wanting to get to Alejandro Zambra for a while now, but I'll probably read something else first...

Well the narrator both argues that

- having a separate genre for children’s literature, as in literature to be read by children, as if it is somehow inferior, is wrong

It seems so absurd to me that there is such thing as non-children’s literature, literature for adults, for non-children, a literature-literature that is the real literature; the idea that I write and read a real literature and the books you and I read together are a kind of substitute or alternative or preparation for real literature seems as unfair as it is false. And honestly, I don’t see any less literature in a story by Maurice Sendak or María Elena Walsh than in any of my favourites from ‘grown-up literature.’

And

- that there should be more literature about the experience of having children (particularly here by fathers), which is naturally more sentimental

For ages, literature has avoided sentimentalism like the plague. I have the impression that even today, many writers would rather be ignored than run the risk of being considered corny or mawkish. And the truth is that when it comes to writing about our children, happiness and tenderness defy our old masculine idea of the communicable. What to do, then, with the joyous and necessarily dopey satisfaction of watching a child learn to stand up or say his first words? And what kind of mirror is a child?

Literary tradition abounds with letters to my father , but letters to my son are pretty scarce. The reasons are predictable – sexism, selfishness, shame, adult centrism, negligence, self-censorship – but maybe it would be worth adding some purely literary reasons, because those of us who have tried know that writing about your own children is quite an artistic challenge. Certainly, it’s easier to omit kids or relegate them to the sidelines, or to see them as obstacles to writing and employ them as excuses; now it turns out it’s all their fault we haven’t been able to concentrate on our arduous, imposing novel.

The second of these - which is what this book is - one might call “childish literature” perhaps, although I can’t remember if the author does so, and changing the title from the original, assuming the Spanish term is the same as Spanish literature would use for the first category, is a bit odd I agree.

Thanks, Paul, that's really interesting.

As you say, still not sure about the decision to go with 'childish' for the second idea, since in English I find that term usually used in a pejorative way, and that's not how he's intending it, and yeah, there's no way I can think of to differentiate in Spanish (and the original title at least does not; curious to see how/if he handles it in the text).

Those excerpts makes me even more interested in reading the book!

From my understanding, Children's Literature would be a more accurate translation of Literatura Infantil. Perhaps the author and translator wanted to make a point that it is "childish" to categorize literature by age (which might be an arbitrary extrapolation).

I have read 2 - The Maniac, which I loved, and Strangers I Know and have added Forgottenness in my Kindle backlog. I like the description of the prize and the variety of this first shortlist makes me hopeful that it will be a source of books I might not otherwise encounter.

Paul wrote: "Sam - there is another book on the list

Forgottenness by Tanja Maljartschuk, tanslated by Zenia Tompkins by Bulluan Press

Which has just been brought to my attention … by the own..."

LOL that Forgottenness got forgotten!

I'm just realizing that this is a book that was already on my TBR, in the German original (seems this Ukrainian author has written her more recent books in German)- didn't recognize it because the OG title translates to "Blue Whale of Memory"...

I just finished The Premonitions Bureau: A True Account of Death Foretold after seeing it on this list & I feel disappointed. While the subject matter is/could be interesting, it rambled a lot & I seriously wonder if an editor even looked at it.

Modern Fairies wins.

in the middle of reading Maniac & absolutely LOVING it so was curious if there were any updates for this prize yet… only now seeing that GY had posted the winner (thank you!) & delighted to see that two runners up prizes were also awarded:

Benjamín Labatut for The Maniac (Pushkin Press)

Tanja Maljartschuk for Forgottenness, translated by Zenia Tompkins (Bullaun Press)

Forgottenness & The Premonitions Bureau are my remaining books from the list (after I finish Maniac), but definitely will read them all & already curious about next year, as Modern Fairies wouldn’t have been my pick for the winner but grateful to have found some gems that I might not have read otherwise / as soon!

looks like the shortlist press release was dated March 31… does anyone know if next year it will be published around the same time, if there might be a longlist, &/or any additional information for 2026?

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "Modern Fairies wins."

What a wonderful surprise for me that it was up for a prize, much less won it. One of my favorite books of 2024, I was mystified that it didn't seem to be getting much attention, from what I could see. Apparently I don't see that much!

really enjoyed & just remembered this prize (thanks for sharing the initial debut of the prize & related information last year, Paul), so wanted to look up if it is active again this year… &, yes!!

Dates: the shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 31st March 2026 & the winner will be announced on Wednesday 20th May 2026!

The judges for the 2026 Prize are: Francis Spufford (Chair), novelist and academic; Krzysztof Zanussi, Polish film director; Carole Welch, publisher and consultant; and Kate Sinclair, wife of Tadeusz Bradecki and Prize founder.

(more info on the judges here: https://www.tadeuszbradeckiprize.com/...)

2026 Shortlist:

Julian Brave Noisecat, We Survived the Night, Profile Books

Evald Flisar, My Kingdom is Dying (trans. David Limon), Istros Books

Olivia Laing, The Silver Book, Hamish Hamilton

Thea Lenarduzzi, The Tower, Fitzcarraldo Editions

Madeleine Thien, The Book of Records, Granta Books

Lea Ypi, Indignity: A Life Reimagined, Allen Lane

I still do not really understand this prize.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I still do not really understand this prize."

I wondered about it to. I found this single line from Paul's intro helped... "Put simply, it celebrates books in which story-telling fiction and non-fiction writing combine in an original way"

My first reaction was is this just a historical fiction prize? But looking at the blurbs of the nominees, it looks like 'original' was the key criteria for the judges - the nominees appear to be blending fiction and non-fiction in a variety of ways.

I agree with you both, GY & Beige! last year seemed more actually original & innovative in the picks, this year has some overlaps with other prize lists &/or they’re just more familiar to me, plus just not as exciting… however, I’ve only read one so far & while enjoyable it didn’t seem all that “original” to me, The Silver Book…

will check out a few titles that I haven’t read yet tho, so maybe my mind will be changed!

The book I'm reading now, Now I Surrender by Alvaro Enrigue seems like a great fit for this. Actually so is his previous book You Dreamed of Empires, but the newer one especially.

Beige wrote: "But looking at the blurbs of the nominees, it looks like 'original' was the key criteria for the judges - the nominees appear to be blending fiction and non-fiction in a variety of ways."

Isn't it exactly that - a Fitzcarraldo 'white' book that they could easily have coloured blue. Olivia Laing's book skates that divide as well.

And Flisar's book is excellent and completely bonkers, the narrator e.g. replacing, according to him, Libby Purves on the 1983 Booker panel which then pick only 5 books (the 5 the actual jury picked but excluding the only woman on the list that year)

Flisar skewers the Booker and similar (incl ones I love) prize culture very neatly from his narrator's experience of the 100+ books he has to read.

I'm surprised the Booker haven't cut and paste this for their entry criteria :-)

When we began reading more than a hundred selected novels, it emerged that the publishers and other recommenders of "Bookerish" works (doubtless on the basis of previous prize winners) saw them as something gloomy and overloaded with words (not to mention "innovative" treatment of words), as well as "literary" and "experimental" (even if the "experiments" were repeating long ago written off experiments), but above all works permeated by feelings of post-colonial or social guilt (and thus politically correct, at least implicitly critical to everything that the United Kingdom had done in the past), plus (even worse) works that painfully anatomised the fragile feelings of members of the upper middle class, very often successful writers who could not stand it that their "realisations" and feelings were not taken seriously.

I enjoyed the Thien and the Lang and am looking forward to the Ypi.

I don’t see how either the Laing or the Thien even though both were enjoyable are really a fiction/non fiction hybrid - just fiction about real historical figures. If that’s original/hybrid Fitzcarraldo blue-white I have not just a bridge to sell you but a whole genre

The Filsar quote was absolutely excellent until I saw the publisher

I got mine Flisar through the Asymptote Book Club (where the first you know is where you open the envelope) - so didn’t get to check for vaccine denial, but it is a very good book.

Don’t know much about the Thien and haven’t read Laing to be fair. The actual Fitz one is definitely hybridy I think.

Yes the actual Fitz one looks a good fit.