'International Literature Award' shortlist

       The Best Translated Book Awards will be announced today in New York at 17:30 (I will be announcing the fiction winner !) but if you haven't had your fill of international literary prizes the Germans have just announced the shortlist for the 'Internationaler Literaturpreis - Haus der Kulturen der Welt', which awards €25,000 to the author and €10,000 to the translator of a foreign work of literature available in German for the first time (like the BTBA: no re-translations). (Note that the 2011 winner, Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin (who happens to be in town for the PEN World Voices festival ...), is a finalist for the BTBA ... (and 2010 winner Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye was also up for this year's BTBA).)
       This year 71 publishers submitted 136 titles, translated from 27 languages (though disappointingly and outrageously, they don't list the titles that were in the running ...). Teju Cole's Open City is one of the shortlisted titles, but two Russian works also are finalists -- and it's great to see Pushkin House-author Andrei Bitov getting some attention too (possibly helping to get some of his more recent stuff translated into English ... ?).
       At Deutsche Welle Silke Bartlick has a Q & A about the shortlist with jury member Claudia Kramatschek, Germany's International Literature Award honors outstanding contributions to global literary art.
       The winner will be announced 12 June.