The 25-title strong longlist for the Best Translated Book Award has now been announced, and the finalists are:
A lot of really good stuff here -- though it is shocking to see not a single non-European language represented.
(I did okay in guessing what would make the list ten months ago: five of my eight guesses made it (and I remain surprised that 1Q84 didn't ...).)
I am looking forward to comparing this with what we'll find on the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize -- due out 8 March -- even though that has slightly different criteria: the BTBA welcomes dead authors; the IFFP doesn't -- but apparently does consider re-translated works, which the BTBA doesn't (of course not too many living authors get books translated more than once during their lifetimes) -- and the published-in-US (BTBA) vs. published-in-UK (IFFP) requirement still makes for a very different pool of books that can be considered for the respective prizes.
Odd fact: a stunning five of these titles were reviewed at the complete review -- based on the French or German original, or a German translation -- before they were translated into English -- in some case long before -- two of them a decade or more ago: Fiasco in 2002, and The Shadow-Boxing Woman all the way back in 2000 !
- Buzz Aldrin, What Happened to You in All the Confusion ? by Johan Harstad
- Demolishing Nisard by by Eric Chevillard
- Fiasco by Kertész Imre
- Funeral for a Dog by Thomas Pletzinger
- I Am a Japanese Writer by Dany Laferrière
- In Red by Magdalena Tulli
- Kafka's Leopards by Moacyr Scliar
- Kornél Esti by Kosztolányi Dezső
- Leeches by David Albahari
- Lightning by Jean Echenoz
- Montecore by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
- My Two Worlds by Sergio Chejfec
- Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas
- New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani
- Private Property by Paule Constant
- Purgatory by Tomás Eloy Martínez
- Scars by by Juan José Saer
- Scenes from Village Life by Amos Oz
- Seven Years by Peter Stamm
- The Shadow-Boxing Woman by Inka Parei
- Stone Upon Stone by Wiesław Myśliwski
- Suicide by Edouard Levé
- The Truth About Marie by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
- Upstaged by Jacques Jouet
- Zone by Mathias Énard
A lot of really good stuff here -- though it is shocking to see not a single non-European language represented.
(I did okay in guessing what would make the list ten months ago: five of my eight guesses made it (and I remain surprised that 1Q84 didn't ...).)
I am looking forward to comparing this with what we'll find on the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize -- due out 8 March -- even though that has slightly different criteria: the BTBA welcomes dead authors; the IFFP doesn't -- but apparently does consider re-translated works, which the BTBA doesn't (of course not too many living authors get books translated more than once during their lifetimes) -- and the published-in-US (BTBA) vs. published-in-UK (IFFP) requirement still makes for a very different pool of books that can be considered for the respective prizes.
Odd fact: a stunning five of these titles were reviewed at the complete review -- based on the French or German original, or a German translation -- before they were translated into English -- in some case long before -- two of them a decade or more ago: Fiasco in 2002, and The Shadow-Boxing Woman all the way back in 2000 !