Man Booker International Prize Longlist

Candidates for this year's Man Booker International Prize have been announced with the release of a 13-book longlist. The prize is awarded annually for a single book, translated into English and published in the UK. The award of £50,000 (about $61,020) is divided equally between the author of the winning book and its translator. A shortlist of six books will be released April 20th, and the winner named on June 14th in London. This year's longlisted titles are:

• Compass by Mathias Enard (France), trans. by Charlotte Mandell
• Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg (Poland), trans. by Eliza Marciniak
• A Horse Walks Into a Bar by David Grossman (Israel), trans. by Jessica Cohen
• War and Turpentine by Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), trans. by David McKay
• The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen (Norway), trans. by Don Bartlett & Don Shaw
• The Traitor's Niche by Ismail Kadare (Albania), trans. by John Hodgson
• Fish Have No Feet by Jon Kalman Stefansson (Iceland), trans. by Phil Roughton
• The Explosion Chronicles by Yan Lianke (China), trans. by Carlos Rojas
• Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou (France), trans. by Helen Stevenson
• Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer (Germany), trans. by Katy Derbyshire
• Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors (Denmark), trans. by Misha Hoekstra
• Judas by Amos Oz (Israel), trans. by Nicholas de Lange
• Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), trans. by Megan McDowell

The 13 books have been translated from 11 different languages, across Europe, Asia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.

Some interesting titles in the list. Unfortunately, they're not always available here in the US, at least not right away. But the fact that they've been nominated for such a prestigious award can mean wider publication, so I'm sure they'll get here eventually.

Awards: 2014 Man Booker Long List

The Long List for the U.K.'s Man Booker Prize has been announced. This year, for the first time in its history, the prize is admitting titles from countries "around the globe" (not just Britain and the Commonwealth) as long as they're written in English. (Seems fair, right?)

Four of the books on the list are by American authors: Richard Powers (Orfeo), Siri Hustvedt (The Blazing World), Joshua Ferris (To Rise Again at a Decent Hour) and Karen Joy Fowler (We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves). Of the other nine books, six are by Britons, two by Irish writers, and one by an Australian.

Wouldn't it be nice if an American author won this time?  Most of the books on the list are new to me. I did give Siri Hustvedt's The Blazing World a go earlier this year, but after the 50-page test it just wasn't holding my interest, so I put it aside and moved on. Maybe I should pull it out and give it another look.

The shortlist of six titles is due to be rolled out on September 9, and the winning novel will be announced on October 14.