Before the Booker

Waiting for the winner of the Booker to be announced?

Read John Crace’s parodies of the shortlisted authors while you twiddle your thumbs.

Here’s his take on Kiran Desai’s Inheritance of Loss:

The description of the mist moving like a water creature across the great flanks of the Himalayas possessed of ocean shadows and depths told Sai that she had inadvertently found her way into a lyrical evocation of post- colonial multiculturalism. She picked up a copy of National Geographic. “That should add a nice post-modern ironic nod to globalisation,” she reckoned.
Jemu patted Mutt affectionately. Mutt was a good name for a dog that belonged to a grumpy retired judge who still retained a deep affection for the English way of life, he thought. And dogs were so much more predictable than his 16-year-old granddaughter, Sai, who had come to stay with him.
The cook cut up the deliberately misspelt pertaytas. What did it matter if he was uneducated, he said to himself, so long as my son Biju is making a career for himself in New York.