The Conch: A Blog

The Republic of Consciousness 2020 longlist

Prizes, eh? Our decision last year to award the Republic of Consciousness to two books – Murmur by Will Eaves (CB Editions) and Lucia by Alex Pheby (Galley Beggar Press) – was not entirely radical or new, but it was relatively rare. Since then, it’s become the flavour of the moment, along with halloumi wraps and demagogues. People are seriously thinking about what ‘winning’ means, and big prizes are reacting by making interesting, sometimes misguided, decisions. It raises the question: are the hierarchy of prize-lists still useful? If we all stopped competing, would we have more time for reading?

This is a useful question, without a fixed answer. The Republic of Consciousness Prize was started to carve a space for books which, without the large marketing budgets of the big publishers, may get lost in the hubbub. We think a list which displays the breadth and variety of the work being done by small publishers is still valuable. And at the next stage, of shortlists and winners, the prize-money is welcome to publishers with tight margins, and writers with limited time and resources.

So while the structure of prizes is imperfect, the juice is still worth the squeeze. The Republic of Consciousness Prize is not designed to encourage competition, but to point readers towards the entire ecosystem of small publishers through some choice gateways.

This year’s longlist travels from Norway to Manila, via the Isle of Wight and Sri Lanka. There are five new publishers here who never appeared on our lists before, taking the overall amount of presses we’ve recognised over the last four years to 34, from 15 towns and cities across the UK and Ireland (we think – who knows where anyone is anymore?). There are many more innovative, weird and brave publishers out there who we haven’t been able to fit on. We had over seventy submissions this year. A very big thank you to our judges Roland Gulliver, Sam Mills and Sophie Lewis, who have managed to come to this decision with grace and circumspection, and without calling each other names. Yet.

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The majority of the prize fund is generously donated by our partners and sponsors at the University of East Anglia, through the UEA Publishing Project. We are immensely grateful for their support.

The rest of the prize money is raised through donations and through our small press book club. Thank you to everyone who has given us money and books over the last year.

The prize would not be possible without the support of Arts Council England. We thank them for their continuing support: not only of us, but also the many small publishing projects they fund and encourage.

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Broken Jaw by Minoli Salgado (The 87 Press)

A collection of stories that travels through civil war, political turmoil and personal memory in Sri Lanka, giving voice to the suppressed, the silenced and the forgotten. These are stories told with courage and hope, and Broken Jaw is an act of defiance. The 87 Press, founded in South London in 2018, is one of five Republic of Consciousness debutants on this year’s longlist.

Love by Hanne Ørstavik, tr. Martin Aitken (And Other Stories)

In a smallish snowbound Norwegian town, a mother and son separately head out for the evening, both magnetised by the nearby fairground and its people. A deftly structured narrative of parallel voices woven closely together, Love becomes a subtly nailbiting exploration of human attractions and the limits of security. It is also a brilliant bit of translation, such as we’ve come to expect from And Other Stories.

Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession (Bluemoose Books)

Books this charming and gentle are rarely also as engaging; the power Hession wrings out of such ordinary situations is almost subversive. Leonard and Hungry Paul manages to find a voice for many things that are only thought. Bluemoose Books continue to hit their targets with unerring accuracy, and the book is soon to be published by Melville House in the US.  

Aliasing by Mara Coson (Book Works)

A burgeoning of jingles and brief histories of lunacy, funny and horrifying, this book is both joyously free-wheeling and tonic to the ear and eye. Mara Coson, co-founder of The Manila Review, brings a radio- and news scandal-driven picture of recent Phillipines culture to an outside world that cannot know every local catchword or every figure of ill repute. But this is an irresistible ride – and a gem apparently spotted among the open submissions to Bookworks’ cutting-edge Semina series.

We are made of Diamond Stuff by Isabel Waidner (Dostoyevsky Wannabe)

This brief brilliant novel seizes the moment, reflecting and refracting life on zero hour contracts in a seaside town in Brexit Britain. Stylistically playful and innovative, it slides across the surreal surfaces of social media and contemporary culture. Isabel Waidner also becomes the joint-first writer to make it onto two Republic of Consciousness longlists, following their shortlisting for Gaudy Bauble (RofC 2018).


Animalia
by Jean-Baptiste Del-Amo, tr. Frank Wynne (Fitzcarraldo Editions) 

Frank Wynne - one of the best translators working today - does a masterful job of capturing Jean-Baptiste Del-Amo’s rich, lyrical and inventive style as he explores the (mis)fortunes of a peasant farming family in France across five generations, against a backdrop of war, economic disaster and industrialisation. This is no pastoral - it is a savage and brutal book, replete with sex and violence, which is also spellbinding, strange and immersive.

Patience by Toby Litt (Galley Beggar Press)

The title of this book has an ongoing power unlike most others: for reader and protagonist alike, patience is our watchword as this sweet, canny, severely disabled boy uses his limited resources to express his extensive, smart and subtle appreciation of the world and the people who come into his orbit. With some of the dark but also deeply compassionate hilarity of Stanley Elkin, this is a work of brilliant control and necessary humanity.

Under Pressure by Faruk Šehić, tr. Mirza Purić (Istros Books)

Written with a poetic voice and an unflinching eye, Faruk Šehić captures the experience of being a soldier on the frontline of the Bosnian war in the 1990s: it’s brutality, banality, the dogged determination to survive and the solace of booze and drugs. All of this is captured in elegant, arresting prose, by a writer who appeared on the first Republic of Consciousness longlist in 2017 with his novel Quiet Flows the Una.

That Lonesome Valley by Melissa Lee-Houghton (Morbid Books)

This raw and beautifully written book is the debut of accomplished poet Melissa Lee-Houghton. It is a tale of two halves, each told from the viewpoint of a couple in a romantic relationship caught in the cycles of heroin addiction; Morbid have rightly called it 'a classic of degenerative literature' in the vein of Burroughs and Irvine Welsh. It’s challenging, honest and completely gripping.

Fatherhood by Caleb Klaces (Prototype Publishing)

Prototype are a new indie on the block, having been established in 2019 with a passion for publishing experimental fiction, aiming to be a 'home for writers and artists whose work requires a creative vision not offered by mainstream literary publishers.' Fatherhood is an exquisitely composed, lyrical meditation on parenting which Max Porter has aptly described as 'a brilliant, charming and weirdly alarming poem-novel'.

El Llano in Flames by Juan Rulfo, tr. Stephen Beechinor (Structo Press)

First published in Mexico in 1953, El Llano en Llamas is a collection of stories by seminal Mexican writer Juan Rulfo, whose few books were a profound influence on contemporaries including García Marquez. This is the first complete English translation of all seventeen stories (and the first publication from Structo Press), by a translator who has taken to heart the landscape and mood of the collection: a realm of narrow choices, stark, arid land and crushing poverty. The parallels with Mexico and other countries today are unavoidable, while Rulfo’s language still speaks powerfully out of his own experience.

The Red Word by Sarah Henstra (Tramp Press)

First published in the 2018 in Canada, The Red Word won the prestigious Governor General’s Award. A punchy and provocative novel set on a US Ivy League campus in the 90s which blends Greek myth with a tale of two warring campus houses A politically charged and timely book which tackles rape culture and gender wars with nuance and complexity.

James Tookey