No sooner do I mention the two leading international author prizes -- the Nobel and the Neustadt -- when the other, relatively new biennial wannabe demands attention, as The Man Booker International Prize 2015 judges have been announced, along with creation of new e-Council.
Marina Warner (see her official site; foreign languages include French and Italian) will chair the panel, and the other judges are: Nadeem Aslam (foreign languages: Urdu), Elleke Boehmer (see her faculty page; foreign languages include Dutch), Edwin Frank, and Wen-chin Ouyang (see her faculty page; foreign language: Arabic). (Quite possibly the judges are literate in other foreign languages as well; these were the ones a quick search found.)
Sounds like a decent panel.
As to the 'e-Council':
What they really have to clear up, however, is how 'present' an author must be in English to be considered -- this is a prize that in one iteration wouldn't even consider Peter Handke, António Lobo Antunes, Michel Tournier, and Christa Wolf, among others, because supposedly not enough of their books were available in English -- and yet most recently had several finalists with very few books readily available in the US/UK (see my previous mention). They really should clear that up.
Marina Warner (see her official site; foreign languages include French and Italian) will chair the panel, and the other judges are: Nadeem Aslam (foreign languages: Urdu), Elleke Boehmer (see her faculty page; foreign languages include Dutch), Edwin Frank, and Wen-chin Ouyang (see her faculty page; foreign language: Arabic). (Quite possibly the judges are literate in other foreign languages as well; these were the ones a quick search found.)
Sounds like a decent panel.
As to the 'e-Council':
The Booker Prize Foundation has decided to draw on the wealth of knowledge and experience of the former judges and winning authors of the Man Booker and Man Booker International Prizes, and is asking them to join a new Man Booker International Prize e-Council, to advise on authors for the judges to consider, and in due course, on new judges for the prize.Sounds like a good idea -- though I don't know why the Man Booker-winning authors are being asked, since that surely just tilts the suggestions even more towards English-writing authors, rather than a more international crowd. Still, the more names they consider, the better.
What they really have to clear up, however, is how 'present' an author must be in English to be considered -- this is a prize that in one iteration wouldn't even consider Peter Handke, António Lobo Antunes, Michel Tournier, and Christa Wolf, among others, because supposedly not enough of their books were available in English -- and yet most recently had several finalists with very few books readily available in the US/UK (see my previous mention). They really should clear that up.