Ozeki wins the cash prize, endowed by an anonymous donor, and the “Bessie”, a limited-edition bronze figurine by the artist Grizel Niven. She said she was inspired to write the novel because as a child she “related to objects as though they were semi-sentient”, adding: “Even now I think about the stories that things could tell if only they could speak.”Īt 560 pages, The Book of Form and Emptiness was the longest book on this year’s shortlist, which also included The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini, The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason, The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak and Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead. She is affiliated with the Everyday Zen Foundation and lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, where she teaches creative writing at Smith College. Ozeki had been previously shortlisted for the Booker prize, for her 2013 novel A Tale for the Time Being. Joining Sieghart on the judging panel were the journalist and editor Lorraine Candy, the author Dorothy Koomson, the journalist and author Anita Sethi and the broadcaster and writer Pandora Sykes.

She called Ozeki a truly original and masterful storyteller. Sieghart had said the novel was a “celebration of the power of books and reading” which tackled “big issues of life and death” it was “a complete joy to read”. Without the real investment of the reader the book fails.” “It’s a real dialogue between the reader and the writer. “You need to put yourself into the book,” she said. Ozeki said that books were “unique in that when a reader reads a book she’s engaged in a way” that she would not be with a TV show or film. The Book of Form and Emptiness is partly a book about listening. Ozeki told the Guardian she felt very grateful to have won but added: “It’s quite random because any of the books on the long list and shortlist are completely worthy.” “I wanted to call out the names of the women who have supported me, because now more than ever this is a time that we need to speak out and rewrite the dominant narratives that have landed us into quite dire straits.” In her speech she thanked the women and women’s institutions who had supported her throughout her career.

The Guardian review praised Ozeki’s “calm, dry, methodical good humour and wit, her love affairs with linguistics and jazz and the absurd, her cautious optimism”.Īccepting the award, Ozeki told the audience it was “absurd” she said she didn’t “win things”. There he meets a series of eccentric characters who teach him to listen to the things that truly matter. When his mother develops a hoarding problem, the voices grow louder, so Benny seeks refuge in the silence and calm of a large public library. The Book of Form and Emptiness is about 14-year-old Benny Oh, who begins to hear voices belonging to the things in his house after the death of his father.

The book form of emptiness