The 25-title strong longlist for the fiction category of the Best Translated Book Award will be announced at Three Percent at 12:00 EST today (with the poetry longlist announced at 10:00 EST).
Given that it's only being unveiled this late in the day I'll leave my commentary for tomorrow (rather than updating this post) -- so for now you have to check out Three Percent to see what made the cut.
At Three Percent Chad Post already did reveal The Books I Thought Would Make the BTBA Longlist ... But Didn't -- listing some of the bigger surprises (though there are others, too -- as I'll note tomorrow).
Obviously, I'm especially surprised The Symmetry Teacher didn't make the cut (despite its translation-focus -- on top of its general excellence ...).
Reminding you again of how the longlist was reached: each of the nine judges (I'm one of them) voted for their top ten titles (in order of preference), and the top sixteen vote-getters made the longlist. Then each judge got to put up a personal selection, rounding out the twenty-five. As you'll see, it works out pretty well -- and I suspect most observers would have a hard time guessing which titles were voted in by all, and which were the personal selections.
Nevertheless, with nine judges involved, personal favorites did not always fare well: only three of my top ten made the top-sixteen cut (including only one of my top four selections !), and none were personal selections of the other judges, leaving only my personal selection to round out the final twenty-five with four of my initial top ten. (Yes, the Bitov was one of my initial top four selections that did not make the cut; while subjectively I favored it I had to put forward another title as my personal choice because it seems the objectively overall stronger candidate.)
I think this is the lowest percentage of titles that I voted for to make the longlist (last year six of the final 25 featured on my top ten, the year before it was seven) -- my influence seems to be waning (or my tastes diverging from the norm ...) ! Of course, we only vote/rank our top ten; several more of these titles would have made my personal top-twenty-five, if there had been reason to select that many ..... But I have to admit, if I were an outsider, guessing the longlist, I don't think I would have guessed much more than 10 of the 25 titles .....
Remember also that at Three Percent we'll be posting -- practically daily, starting tomorrow -- a 'Why this book should win'-defense/argument/explanation for each of the longlisted titles !
Given that it's only being unveiled this late in the day I'll leave my commentary for tomorrow (rather than updating this post) -- so for now you have to check out Three Percent to see what made the cut.
At Three Percent Chad Post already did reveal The Books I Thought Would Make the BTBA Longlist ... But Didn't -- listing some of the bigger surprises (though there are others, too -- as I'll note tomorrow).
Obviously, I'm especially surprised The Symmetry Teacher didn't make the cut (despite its translation-focus -- on top of its general excellence ...).
Reminding you again of how the longlist was reached: each of the nine judges (I'm one of them) voted for their top ten titles (in order of preference), and the top sixteen vote-getters made the longlist. Then each judge got to put up a personal selection, rounding out the twenty-five. As you'll see, it works out pretty well -- and I suspect most observers would have a hard time guessing which titles were voted in by all, and which were the personal selections.
Nevertheless, with nine judges involved, personal favorites did not always fare well: only three of my top ten made the top-sixteen cut (including only one of my top four selections !), and none were personal selections of the other judges, leaving only my personal selection to round out the final twenty-five with four of my initial top ten. (Yes, the Bitov was one of my initial top four selections that did not make the cut; while subjectively I favored it I had to put forward another title as my personal choice because it seems the objectively overall stronger candidate.)
I think this is the lowest percentage of titles that I voted for to make the longlist (last year six of the final 25 featured on my top ten, the year before it was seven) -- my influence seems to be waning (or my tastes diverging from the norm ...) ! Of course, we only vote/rank our top ten; several more of these titles would have made my personal top-twenty-five, if there had been reason to select that many ..... But I have to admit, if I were an outsider, guessing the longlist, I don't think I would have guessed much more than 10 of the 25 titles .....
Remember also that at Three Percent we'll be posting -- practically daily, starting tomorrow -- a 'Why this book should win'-defense/argument/explanation for each of the longlisted titles !