The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

The long list for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008 was announced at the end of January.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE this prize, because it has introduced me to so much wonderful foreign fiction translated into English, not least Out Stealing Horses, which I bought as a result of the long list of January 2006 – it turned out to be the eventual winner. Previous winners include Pamuk, Kundera, Saramago, Enquist and Sebald.
I also love this prize because it is the only one (as far as I’m aware) that honours the marvellous work done by translators… the £10,000 prize money is divided equally between author and translator.

The only fly in the ointment this year is that it highlights the stupidity and short-sightedness of co-sponsor, the Arts Council of England, which has recently announced severe cuts to small publishers, thus threatening their very existence, including, ironically, Arcadia, which published last year’s winner and has two titles on this year’s list. Bah!

The short list of six will be selected at the end of March, and the winner will be announced in May. The long-list was selected from almost 100 submissions of translated fiction by living authors published in the UK during 2007, and includes some beauties:

The Yacoubian Building, Alaa al Aswany (Humphrey Davies, Arabic)
Book of Words, Jenny Erpenbeck (Susan Bernofsky, German)
The Moon Opera, Bi Feiyu (Howard Goldblatt, Chinese)
Castorp, Pawel Huelle (Antonia Lloyd Jones, Polish)
Agamemnon’s Daughter, Ismail Kadare (David Bellos, French)
Let It Be Morning, Sayed Kashua (Miriam Shlesinger, Hebrew)
Measuring The World, Daniel Kehlmann (Carol Brown Janeway, German)
Gregorius, Bengt Ohlsson (Silvester Mazzarella, Swedish)
Shutterspeed, Erwin Mortier (Ina Rilke, Dutch)
The Past, Alan Pauls (Nick Caistor, Spanish)
Rivers Of Babylon, Peter Pist’anek (Peter Petro, Slovak)
Delirium, Laura Restrepo (Natasha Wimmer, Spanish)
The Model, Lars Saabye Christensen (Don Barlett, Norwegian)
Bahia Blues, Yasmina Traboulsi (Polly McLean, French)
The Way Of The Women, Marlene van Niekerk (Michiel do Heyns, Afrikaans)
Omega Minor, Paul Verhaeghen (Paul Verhaeghen, Dutch)
Montano, Enrique Vilas-Matas (Jonathan Dunne, Spanish)

I've read The Yacoubian Building and Measuring the World;
I have the Book of Words and Castorp (both in German) on my TBR pile, as well as Gregorius and Agamemnon’s Daughter, so shall be reading them soon.

Thanks for posting this.

Congratulations to Paul Verhaeghen, winner of the the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2008.

The longlist for this year's award has been posted on Ready Steady Book. I thought people might be interested:

* Voice over by Celine Curiol (trans. by Sam Richard)
* A Blessed Child by Linn Ullman (trans. by Sarah Death)
* The Blue Fox by Sjón (trans. by Victoria Cribb)
* Friendly Fire by A.B. Yehushua (trans. Stuart Schoffman)
* My Father's Wives by Jose Eduardo Algualusa (trans. Daniel Hahn)
* The White King by Gyorgy Dragomán (trans. Paul Olchvary)
* The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (trans. Anne McLeane)
* Homesick by Eshkol Nevo (trans. Sondra Silverstein)
* Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (trans. Flora Drew)
* The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa (trans Stephen Snyder)
* Novel 11, Book 18 by Dag Solsted (trans. Sverre Lyngstad)
* The Director by Alexander Ahndoril (trans. Sarah Death)
* The Armies by Euelio Rosero (trans. Anne McLean)
* How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone by Sasa Stasic (trans. Anthea Bell)
* The Siege by Ismail Kadare (trans. David Bellos, from the French of Jusuf Vrioni)
* Night Work by Thomas Glavinic (trans. John Brownjohn)

Thanks, LizT!

I've read the Stasic and the Glavinic in German, and I've had The Blue Fox on order for flipping ages, without any sign of it appearing, but I live in hope. I think I have Beijing Coma and The Siege lying around here somewhere...

I have heard of too few of these; look forward to exploring them. Thanks.

Thaks LizT. Looks interesting.

I've only read The Diving Pool but liked it well enough. I do have some other works by Ma Jian around the house - The Noodle Maker was moderately interesting.

Thanks for posting the list, LizT.

I've read only Novel 11, Book 18 from this list, which was superb. I have Beijing Coma, but haven't read it yet. I think deebee recommended The Siege to me, but I haven't read it yet.

I agree with avaland's comment on The Noodle Maker, interesting but not memorable.

The shortlist for the 2009 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced today:

Voice Over by Céline Curiol (France)
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian (China)
The Siege by Ismail Kadare (Albania)
The Armies by Evelio Rosero (Colombia)
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez (Colombia)
Friendly Fire by A.B. Yehoshua (Israel)

Today's Guardian has an article about the announcement:

Colombia dominates Independent foreign fiction prize shortlist

The Independent has a competition to win the whole longlist plus some champagne:

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/win-fantastic-interna...

UK-only, I suspect, but some Brits may drop by here...

I'm quite excited as work are having a short festival of translated literature late in June in association with the IFFP. Although as programme is only just finalised the promotion is going to be a bit of a nightmare....

The Colombian writer Evelio Rosero is the winner of this year's prize, for his novel The Armies:

Colombian civil war story wins Independent foreign fiction prize

Thanks for the update! That book would have never crossed my radar otherwise.

Edited to add a link to the winning book.

More information about The Armies from the publisher's web site:

KEYNOTE
An old Colombian man bears witness to the senseless violence engulfing his country in an immensely disturbing book where every detail is true to life.

QUOTES
‘Unquestionably one of the most important Latin American novels of the last few years’: El Universal
‘Los Ejercitos’ is a timeless epic … which intends to bear witness to the madness of a country adrift in the crossfire’: El Pais

SYNOPSIS
In the village of San José in the remote mountains of Colombia, retired teacher Ismael spends his days gathering oranges in the sunshine and spying on his neighbour as she sunbathes naked in her orchard. It is a languid existence, pierced by his wife’s scolding, which induces in him the furtive guilt of an aging voyeur.

Out walking one day, Ismael and his wife lose sight of each other. The old man is fearful, for San José has random kidnappings in its past, but reassured by others who have seen her in the village. Soon, though, more people begin to go missing, and gradually bursts of gunfire can be heard in the distance. As the attacks grow steadily more brutal, Ismael finds himself caught in the crossfire; an old man battered by a reality he no longer understands. This is a novel with no easy solutions, in which no-one is spared, no-one is protected.

Evelio Rosero studied Social Communication in the Externado University of Colombia. In 2006 he was awarded the Tusquets National Prize for Literature in Colombia for his novel The Armies. Anne McLean has translated the novels of, among others, Javier Cercas, Julio Cortázar, Ignacio Padilla and Tomás Eloy Martínez. Her translation of Javier Cercas' Soldiers of Salamis won the 2004 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the Premio Valle Inclan.

Well. And I'd pretty much convinced myself it was going to be Beijing Coma. Well done to Anne McLean!

The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced yesterday:

Brodeck's Report by Philippe Claudel, translated by John Cullen from the French
The Blind Side of the Heart by Julia Franck, translated by Anthea Bell from the German
Fists by Pietro Grossi, translated by Howard Curtis from the Italian
Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou, translated by Helen Stevenson from the French
The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami, translated by Anthea Bell from the German
Chowringhee by Sankar, translated by Arunava Sinha from the Bengali

"The winner will be announced on 13 May. Last year's award was won by Colombian writer Evelio Rosero's The Armies, translated from the Spanish by Anne McLean."

Champions of the word: Treasures from Berlin to Bengal feature on the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist

I've read Broken Glass and Chowringhee, which were both very good. I haven't heard of the others on this list.

I missed the announcement of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist, which occurred last month.

Boris Akunin: The Coronation (translated by Andrew Bromfield from the Russian) Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Ketil Bjørnstad: To Music (Deborah Dawkin & Erik Skuggevik; Norwegian) Maia Press

Hassan Blasim: The Madman of Freedom Square (Jonathan Wright; Arabic) Comma Press

Philippe Claudel: Brodeck's Report (John Cullen; French) MacLehose Press

Julia Franck: The Blind Side of the Heart (Anthea Bell; German) Harvill Secker

Pietro Grossi: Fists (Howard Curtis; Italian) Pushkin Press

Elias Khoury: Yalo (Humphrey Davies; Arabic) MacLehose Press

Jonathan Littell: The Kindly Ones (Charlotte Mandell; French) Chatto & Windus

Alain Mabanckou Broken Glass (Helen Stevenson; French) Serpent's Tail

Javier Marías: Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell (Margaret Jull Costa; Spanish) Chatto & Windus

Yoko Ogawa: The Housekeeper and the Professor (Stephen Snyder; Japanese) Harvill Secker

Claudia Piñeiro: Thursday Night Widows (Miranda France; Spanish) Bitter Lemon Press

Sankar: Chowringhee (Arunava Sinha; Bengali) Atlantic

Rafik Schami: The Dark Side of Love (Anthea Bell; German) Arabia Books

Bahaa Taher: Sunset Oasis (Humphrey Davies; Arabic) Sceptre

From this list, in addition to the novel by Sankar and Mabanckou, I've read the Ogawa, and own the Khoury and the Taher.

Thanks for posting both lists, Darryl.

Well, I've read the Ogawa, and I have the Khoury (yet unread). I have read a couple of Akunin's mysteries.

Yes, thanks for posting. This is a very interesting Prize.

According to BBC News, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was awarded to the French writer Philippe Claudel for his novel Brodeck's Report:

Philippe Claudel wins foreign fiction award

Brodeck's Report is available in the US, as Brodeck. It's a novel that takes place after WW2 in a village on the Franco-German border; according to a review in the Guardian last year, "{u}ncertainty is a major theme of Claudel's novel, which is both fable-like and documentary in style. While it is concerned with difference and intolerance as abstract, universal themes, Brodeck's Report is also a historical novel about a camp survivor (Brodeck) and the effect of Nazism on a specific place, assumed to be a German dialect-speaking part of Alsace Lorraine."

On the edge of the unknown: Giles Foden enjoys filling in the gaps of an excellent French novel about difference and intolerance

The longlist for this year's award has been announced:

Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras, translated by Frank Wynne
To the End of the Land by David Grossman, translated by Jessica Cohen
Fame by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Carol Brown Janeway
Beside the Sea by Veronique Olmi, translated by Adriana Hunter
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Maureen Freely
I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson, translated by Charlotte Barslund with Per Petterson
Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo, translated by Edith Grossman
Gargling with Tar by Jachym Topol, translated by David Short
The Sickness by Alberto Berrera Tyszka, translated by Margaret Jull Costa
The Secret History of Costaguana by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean
The Journey of Anders Sparrman by Per Wastberg, translated by Tom Geddes
Lovetown by Michal Witkowski, translated by W Martin
Villain by Shuichi Yoshida, translated by Philip Gabriel (Harvill Secker)
Dark Matter by Juli Zeh, translated by Christine Lo (Harvill Secker)

A shortlist of six will be revealed on 11th April at the London Book Fair and the overall winner will be announced at an awards ceremony on 26th May.

What is that, 3 women? (10 of the translators are women though...)

The shortlist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has just been announced:

Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo (Atlantic Books)
Kamchatka by Marcelo Figueras (Atlantic Books)
The Sickness by Alberto Barrera Tyszka (Maclehose Press)
Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck (Portobello Books)
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk (Faber)
I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson (Harvill Secker)

The winner will be announced on 26 May.

More info: http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/PrizeDetails.aspx?prizeId=1000

Red April by Peruvian writer Santiago Roncagliolo is the winner of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The writer and the novel's translator, Edith Grossman, will each be awarded £5,000.

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011

'Red April' wins the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

This year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist has been announced:

1Q84: Books 1 and 2 by Haruki Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Jay Rubin
Alice by Judith Hermann, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M. Green
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Cindy Carter
The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg, translated from the Swedish by Sarah Death
From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
Hate: A Romance by Tristan Garcia, translated from the French by Marion Duvert and Lorin Stein
New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani, translated from the Italian by Judith Landry
Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki, translated from the German by Anthea Bell
Parallel Stories by Peter Nadas, translated from the Hungarian by Imre Goldstein
Please Look After Mother by Kyung-sook Shin, translated from the Korean by Shin Chi-Young Kim
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon
Professor Andersen's Night by Dag Solstad, translated from the Norwegian by Agnes Scott Langeland
Seven Houses in France by Bernardo Atxaga, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa

Thanks for posting this list, Darryl. I was disappointed by last year's winner (that is, I read it and was underwhelmed; I can't speak to how it compared to the other nominees). As for this year, as I noted on your Club Read thread, I have the Eco but haven't read it, and have read other books by Solstad and Yam Lianke.

You're welcome, Rebecca. I was also disappointed by Red April, last year's winner. I've read 1Q84: Books 1 and 2, which was very good, and I read Professor Andersen's Night last week, which I found to be confusing and disjointed. (I liked Dag Solstad's two other books that have been translated into English, Novel 11, Book 18 and Shyness & Dignity, so this was especially disappointing to me.) I own Dream of Ding Village, which I'll read for the 4th quarter Reading Globally theme, and I'll probably read Blooms of Darkness for the 3rd quarter challenge.

I found Novel 11, Book 18 extremely disturbing and Yan Lianke's Serve the People! a little obvious, but mildly entertaining.

How interesting ... I too was disappointed by Red April. But, on a bright note, Adriana Hunter's translation of Veronique Olmi's Beside the Sea won the Scott-Moncrieff Prize - a brilliant book from a brilliant publisher (Peirene). Sorry if I sound like I'm pushing - I just want everyone to read translations, although I realise that on this thread it's like preaching to the choir.

This year's shortlist has just been announced:

Alice by Judith Hermann, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo
Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld, translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M. Green
Dream of Ding Village by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Cindy Carter
From the Mouth of the Whale by Sjón, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb
New Finnish Grammar by Diego Marani, translated from the Italian by Judith Landry
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco, translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon

I think Dream of Ding Village sounds very interesting, especially because it's a novelization of a true story.

Oh, and I'm so glad that Please Look After Mom didn't make the short list. I still haven't recovered from hating that book.

I have Dream of Ding Village, and I was planning to read it during the 4th quarter Reading Globally theme.

I read another book by Yan Lianke a few years ago, Serve the People! and while parts of it were enjoyable it was a little heavy-handed and obvious. But so were several of the works of contemporary Chinese literature I read at that time in my mini-Chinese reading phase. So I think I'll wait for a while on Dream of Ding Village. I do have The Prague Cemetery and will get to it eventually, and will take a look at the others.

The winner was announced this evening in London. The 2012 prize goes to Blooms of Darkness by Aharon Appelfeld.

I'd add that Blooms of Darkness is published by a small, quite new and quite brave independent publisher in the UK.

The longlist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced last week:

Gerbrand Bakker, The Detour (translated by David Colmer from the Dutch)
Chris Barnard, Bundu (Michiel Heyns; Afrikaans)
Laurent Binet, HHhH (Sam Taylor; French)
Dasa Drndic, Trieste (Ellen Elias-Bursac; Croatian)
Pawel Huelle, Cold Sea Stories (Antonia Lloyd-Jones; Polish)
Pia Juul, The Murder of Halland (Martin Aitken; Danish)
Ismail Kadare, The Fall of the Stone City (John Hodgson; Albanian)
Khaled Khalifa, In Praise of Hatred (Leri Price; Arabic)
Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Death in the Family (published in the US as My Struggle, Book One (Don Bartlett; Norwegian)
Laszlo Krasznahorkai, Satantango (George Szirtes; Hungarian)
Alain Mabanckou, Black Bazaar (Sarah Ardizzone; French)
Diego Marani, The Last of the Vostyachs (Judith Landry; Italian)
Andrés Neuman, Traveller of the Century (Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia; Spanish)
Orhan Pamuk, Silent House (Robert Finn; Turkish)
Juan Gabriel Vásquez, The Sound of Things Falling (Anne McLean; Spanish)
Enrique Vila-Matas, Dublinesque (Rosalind Harvey & Anne McLean; Spanish), Harvill Secker

The shortlist will be announced on April 11, and the winner will be announced in May in London.

More info: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/prizes-and-awards/7

That is a very fine list!

Kadare seems to be almost subscribed to the long list - it is his third nomination in the last 6 years.

The shortlist has now been revealed:

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker, translated from the Dutch by David Colmer
Bundu by Chris Barnard, translated from the Afrikaans by Michiel Heyns
Trieste by Dasa Drndic, translated from the Croatian by Ellen Elias-Bursac
The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare, translated from the Albanian by John Hodgson
Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman, translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia
Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas, translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey and Anne McLeen

One of the longlisted titles that didn't make it onto the shortlist just won the Best Translated Book Award last night - Satantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkai, tr by George Szirtes.

The longlist for this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced earlier today:

A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard and translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (US title: My Struggle: Book Two)
A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli and translated from the French by Sam Taylor
Back to Back by Julia Franck and translated from the German by Anthea Bell
Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andreï Makine and translated from the French by Geoffrey Strachan
Butterflies in November by Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir and translated from the Icelandic by Brian FitzGibbon
The Corpse Washer by Sinan Antoon and translated from the Arabic by the author
The Dark Road by Ma Jian and translated from the Chinese by Flora Drew
Exposure by Sayed Kashua and translated from the Hebrew by Mitch Ginsberg
The Infatuations by Javier Marías and translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim and translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke and translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa and translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
The Sorrow of Angels by Jón Kalman Stefánsson and translated from the Icelandic by Philip Roughton
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami and translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell
Ten by Andrej Longo and translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis

More info: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/266/

It's a great longlist this year!

This year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist was announced today:

A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard and translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (US title: My Struggle: Book Two)
A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli and translated from the French by Sam Taylor
The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim and translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright
The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke and translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch
Revenge by Yoko Ogawa and translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder
Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami and translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

More info: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/278/

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist was released last week:

The Ravens by Tomas Bannerhed
The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck
Bloodlines by Marcello Fois
In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González
The Dead Lake by Hamid Ismailov
F by Daniel Kehlmann
Boyhood Island by Karl Ove Knausgaard (alternate title: My Struggle: Book Three)
By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
The Investigation by Jung-Myung Lee
While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami
The Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky
Tiger Milk by Stefanie de Velasco
Look Who’s Back by Timur Vermes
The Last Lover by Can Xue

The Independent: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: 'Delightful discoveries' in foreign fiction prize

This year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist was announced last week:

By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel
Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Murakami Haruki
The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck
F by Daniel Kehlmann
In the Beginning Was the Sea by Tomás González
While the Gods Were Sleeping by Erwin Mortier

The winning book will be announced on May 27th. More info here: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/prizes/7

BTW, the winner of last year's Indepedent Foreign Fiction Prize was The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim, translated by Jonathan Wright. This was the first time that a novel by an Arab author won the award. I bought it last year, but I haven't read it yet.

More info, including a video interview of the author here: http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/291/

The End of Days by Jenny Erpenbeck is the winner of this year's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize.