Notorious French author Frédéric Beigbeder and his translator Frank Wynne share £10,000 for winning this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The winning book, Windows on the World, published here by 4th Estate, portrays the final hours of a Texan property dealer and his sons in the restaurant at the top of the World Trade Centre’s north tower (the restaurant was called Windows on the World) on 11 September 2001. Meanwhile, in Paris, a French writer struggles to make sense of the terrible events and their aftermath, treating it as a call to conscience and personal reform.
The Independent refers to A recent New York Times article on Beigbeder which accuses him of being “a hipster nihilist, a publicity hound, a jerk, a self-impressed renegade”. However, it then went on to ask “How is it […] that he has written so funny and moving a book?” about the most sensitive and taboo moment in recent American history. Beigbeder himself writes: “It’s impossible to write about this subject, and yet it is impossible to write about anything else”, and concludes: “The only thing we deserve to be remembered for is how well and generously we loved”.
The choice of Beigbeder’s book was not unanimous amongst the judges, so they decided to nominate a runner-up: Give Me (Songs for Lovers) by 24-year-old Russian writer Irina Denezhkina. It is her first book, a collection of stories, translated by Andrew Bromfield for Chatto & Windus.
Last year, the prize was awarded to Spanish author Javier Cercas, and his translator Anne McLean, for Soldiers of Salamis.