 First US edition | |
| Author | Tibor Fischer |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Publisher | The New Press (US) Polygon Books (UK) |
Publication date | 1992 |
Under the Frog is the 1992 debut novel of British writer Tibor Fischer. [1] The book was a winner of the 1992 Betty Trask Award [2] and was the first debut novel to be shortlisted for the Booker Prize. [1] [3]
The novel is a black comedy set in Hungary in the years immediately following the end of World War II and culminates in the 1956 uprising. Its protagonists are Gyuri, Pataki and several others, basketball players who dream of escaping their dead-end factory jobs, and travel to all their basketball gigs in the nude, even when this involves using public transport.
The book especially parodies the trumpeting of the "gains of socialism" by the regime, empty rhetoric which, Fischer suggests, all but the dimmest were able to see through even from the beginning.
The title is taken from a Hungarian expression, "a béka segge alatt" used to describe any situation when things can't seem to get any worse: "under a frog's arse, down a coalmine".
Adam Thirlwell is a British novelist. His work has been translated into thirty languages. He has twice been named as one of Granta's Best of Young British Novelists. In 2015 he received the E.M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is an advisory editor of The Paris Review.
Sarah Ann Waters is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith.
The University of East Anglia's Creative Writing Course was founded by Sir Malcolm Bradbury and Sir Angus Wilson in 1970. The M.A. has been regarded among the most prestigious in the United Kingdom.
Tibor Fischer is a British novelist and short-story writer. In 1993, he was selected by the literary magazine Granta as one of the 20 best young British writers, while his novel Under the Frog was featured on the Booker Prize shortlist.
The Betty Trask Prize and Awards are for first novels written by authors under the age of 35, who reside in a current or former Commonwealth nation. Each year the awards total £20,000, with one author receiving a larger prize amount, called the "Prize", and the remainder given to one or more other writers, called the "Awards". The award was established in 1984 by the Society of Authors, at the bequest of the late Betty Trask, a reclusive author of over thirty romance novels. The awards are given to traditional or romantic novels, rather than those of an experimental style, and can be for published or unpublished works.
Nadeem Aslam FRSL is a British Pakistani novelist. His debut novel, Season of the Rainbirds, won the Betty Trask and the Author's Club First Novel Award. His critically acclaimed second novel Maps for Lost Lovers won Encore Award and Kiriyama Prize; it was shortlisted for International Dublin Literary Award, among others. Colm Tóibín described him as "one of the most exciting and serious British novelists writing now".
Jon McGregor is a British novelist and short story writer. In 2002, his first novel was longlisted for the Booker Prize, making him then the youngest-ever contender. His second and fourth novels were longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2006 and 2017 respectively. In 2012, his third novel, Even the Dogs, was awarded the International Dublin Literary Award. The New York Times has labelled him a "wicked British writer".
Gwendoline Riley is an English writer.
Justin Hill is an English novelist.
Ross Raisin FRSL is a British novelist.
Eleanor Catton is a New Zealand novelist and screenwriter. Born in Canada, Catton moved to New Zealand as a child and grew up in Christchurch. She completed a master's degree in creative writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters. Her award-winning debut novel, The Rehearsal, written as her Master's thesis, was published in 2008, and has been adapted into a 2016 film of the same name. Her second novel, The Luminaries, won the 2013 Booker Prize, making Catton the youngest author ever to win the prize and only the second New Zealander. It was subsequently adapted into a television miniseries, with Catton as screenwriter. In 2023, she was named on the Granta Best of Young British Novelists list.
Adaobi Tricia Obinne Nwaubani is a Nigerian novelist, humorist, essayist and journalist. Her debut novel, I Do Not Come To You By Chance, won the 2010 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book (Africa), a Betty Trask First Book award, and was named by The Washington Post as one of the Best Books of 2009. Her debut Young Adult novel, Buried Beneath the Baobab Tree, based on interviews with girls kidnapped by Boko Haram, was published by HarperCollins in September 2018. It won the 2018 Raven Award for Excellence in Arts and Entertainment, was named as one of the American Library Association’s Best Fiction for Young Adults, and is a Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2019 selection.
Evelyn Rose Strange "Evie" Wyld is an Anglo-Australian author. Her first novel, After the Fire, A Still Small Voice, won the John Llewellyn Rhys Prize in 2009, and her second novel, All the Birds, Singing, won the Encore Award in 2013 and the Miles Franklin Award in 2014. Her third novel, The Bass Rock, won the Stella Prize in 2021.
Anjali Joseph is an Indian novelist. Her first novel, Saraswati Park (2010), earned her several awards, including the Betty Trask Prize and Desmond Elliott Prize. Her second novel, Another Country, was released in 2012. In 2010, she was listed by The Telegraph as one of the 20 best writers under the age of 40. Her third novel, The Living (2016), was shortlisted for the DSC Prize and is a tender, lyrical and often funny novel which shines a light on everyday life. Her fourth novel, Keeping in Touch, was published in India in 2021 by Context and in the UK in 2022 by Scribe.
Emma Constance Healey is a British novelist. Her debut novel, Elizabeth is Missing (2014) won the annual Costa Book Award, Best First Novel.
Elnathan John is a Nigerian novelist, satirist and lawyer whose stories have twice been shortlisted for the Caine Prize for African Writing.
Francesca Segal is a British author and journalist. She was raised in a Jewish community in north-west London where she still lives today. She is best known for her novel, The Innocents, which won several book awards. She is the daughter of American author, Erich Segal.
Imachibundu Oluwadara Onuzo is a Nigerian novelist. Her first novel, The Spider King's Daughter, won a Betty Trask Award, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize and the Commonwealth Book Prize, and was longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize and the Etisalat Prize for Literature.
Irenosen Iseghohi Okojie FRSL is a Nigerian-born short story and novel writer working in London. Her stories incorporate speculative elements and also make use of her West African heritage. Her first novel, Butterfly Fish won a Betty Trask Award in 2016, and her story "Grace Jones" won the 2020 Caine Prize for African Writing. She was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.
Ben Richard Fergusson is a British writer and translator. He studied English Literature at Warwick University and Modern Languages at Bristol University. Before publishing his first novel he worked for ten years as an editor and publisher in the art world. Fergusson lives with his husband and son in Berlin, where he teaches at the University of Potsdam.
 | This article about a 1990s novel is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. See guidelines for writing about novels. Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page. |