2010 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Longlist

[BlogSpy]

After months and months (twelve to be exact) and books upon books, our nine fiction panelists finally came up with the 25-title fiction longlist for this year’s Best Translated Book Award.

It was a rather difficult decision—it always is, and for me, there’s always a moment where it seems like 30 books would be a better number than 25 . . . —but I’m personally really happy with the list that we came up with. There are some classic authors (Robert Walser, Robert Bolano), some relative unknowns (Wolf Haas, Ferenc Barnas, Cao Naiqian), and a nice geographical mix (including books from Egypt and Djibouti).

Over the next few days, we’ll be highlighting some anthologies, retranslations/reprints, and honorable mentions that didn’t make the longlist. Then, starting next Monday and running for 25-consecutive business days, I’ll highlight a title a day building up to Tuesday, February 16th when we’ll announce both the fiction and poetry finalists for the 2010 Best Translated Book Awards.
One interesting thing about this year’s fiction longlist—it’s incredibly diverse. We have authors from 23 different countries, writing in 17 different languages, and published by 15 different publishers . . .

Without further ado, here are the 25 fiction finalists. Click on the title to purchase the book from Idlewild Books—our featured indie store of the month—or click on the publisher’s name to go to the dedicated page on the publisher’s website.


2010 Best Translated Book Award: Fiction Longlist
Ghosts by C?sar Aira.
Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews. (Argentina)
(New Directions)

The Ninth by Ferenc Barn?s.
Translated from the Hungarian by Paul Olchv?ry. (Hungary)
(Northwestern University Press)

Anonymous Celebrity by Ign?cio de Loyola Brand?o.
Translated from the Portuguese by Nelson Vieira. (Brazil)
(Dalkey Archive)

The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker.
Translated from the Dutch by David Colmer. (Netherlands)
(Archipelago)

The Skating Rink by Roberto Bola?o.
Translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews. (Chile)
(New Directions)

Wonder by Hugo Claus.
Translated from the Dutch by Michael Henry Heim. (Belgium)
(Archipelago)


Every Man Dies Alone by Hans Fallada.
Translated from the German by Michael Hofmann. (Germany)
(Melville House)

Op Oloop by Juan Filloy.
Translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman. (Argentina)
(Dalkey Archive)

Vilnius Poker by Ričardas Gavelis.
Translated from the Lithuanian by Elizabeth Novickas. (Lithuania)
(Open Letter)

The Zafarani Files by Gamal al-Ghitani.
Translated from the Arabic by Farouk Abdel Wahab. (Egypt)
(American University Press of Cairo)

The Weather Fifteen Years Ago by Wolf Haas.
Translated from the German by Stephanie Gilardi and Thomas S. Hansen. (Austria)
(Ariadne Press)

The Confessions of Noa Weber by Gail Hareven.
Translated from the Hebrew by Dalya Bilu. (Israel)
(Melville House)

The Discoverer by Jan Kj?rstad.
Translated from the Norwegian by Barbara Haveland. (Norway)
(Open Letter)

Memories of the Future by Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky.
Translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull. (Russia)
(New York Review Books)

Desert by J. M. G. Le Cl?zio.
Translated from the French by C. Dickson. (France)
(David R. Godine)

There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night by Cao Naiqian.
Translated from the Chinese by John Balcom. (China)
(Columbia University Press)

The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk.
Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely. (Turkey)
(Knopf)

News from the Empire by Fernando del Paso.
Translated from the Spanish by Alfonso Gonz?lez and Stella T. Clark. (Mexico)
(Dalkey Archive)


The Mighty Angel by Jerzy Pilch.
Translated from the Polish by Bill Johnston. (Poland)
(Open Letter)

Rex by Jos? Manuel Prieto.
Translated from the Spanish by Esther Allen. (Cuba)
(Grove)

Death in Spring by Merc? Rodoreda.
Translated from the Catalan by Martha Tennent. (Spain)
(Open Letter)

Landscape with Dog and Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos.
Translated from the Greek by Karen Emmerich. (Greece)
(Clockroot)

Brecht at Night by Mati Unt.
Translated from the Estonian by Eric Dickens. (Estonia)
(Dalkey Archive)

In the United States of Africa by Abdourahman Waberi.
Translated from the French by David and Nicole Ball. (Djibouti)
(University of Nebraska Press)

The Tanners by Robert Walser.
Translated from the German by Susan Bernofsky. (Austria)
(New Directions)


More...

[kpjayan]

Congratulations Eric, hope to see your name in the final list.

[Liam]

Brecht at Night by Mati Unt.
Translated from the Estonian by Eric Dickens. (Estonia)
(Dalkey Archive)

I second kpjayan's hope to see your name in the final list, Eric.

Regards,
L.

[e joseph]

Anyone have any thoughts on this list? Seems like something the Forum could get behind as an English based WLF.

As for me, I've read only The Skating Rink, Ghosts and Death in Spring. The first I really enjoyed, though I'm guessing there are better books on the list. Ghosts, methinks, I was too dense to comprehend. Death in Spring I wasn't really that impressed by.

And indeed, congrats Eric.

[nnyhav]

Yep, good on ya, Eric. Got some stiff competition there though, particularly Vilnius Poker for Baltic representative ...

As with e_jo I've read the Andrews/NDP efforts, I think probly too slight to get shortlisted, howevermuch service he's done in past efforts; Walser (on my TBR shelf) looks more likely to be NDP's contender. If Gavelis' isn't selected for Open Letter, past service may serve Bill Johnston (Pilch) well; Fallada (for MHPbooks) has also gotten a lot of attention. But enough handicapping. While those of the aforementioned I haven't read I have considered, what's piqued my interest in the list are the Ign?cio de Loyola Brand?o, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, & Cao Naiqian.

and Idlewild's got 'em on sale! I am so there ...

[learna]

Congrtulations, Eric!

[Clarissa]

Congratulations, Eric. Keeping my fingers crossed for you!

[Eric]

Obviously, at the level of sheer selfishness, I would like to win. But the longlist will do, as it will help poor old Vladimir Pool.

Who?

Throughout this otherwise wacky-crazy novel about the exceedingly bourgeois Bertolt Brecht (father: a factory owner) living it up in Finland and screwing at least two women, while neighbouring Estonia was being invaded by people purporting to support the working classes, there are, juxtaposed, real-life texts, taken from archives. These accentuate the novel's ironic synchronicity.

The very best and most telling text in the whole novel is non-fiction, and rather repetitive. Not part of Mati Unt's loony-funny-ironic-tongue-in-cheek fiction but, thanks to ex-KGB agent (!) Vladimir Pool, a real text. It consists of a long and dreary list of all the MPs, ministers, etc., of the Estonian governments of the 1930s who were sent to Siberia and died of hunger or were shot, mostly in 1942.

However authoritarian the Estonian governments were in the 1930s, they were still freeish, chosen in a Western-style democracy, though it had become threadbare after the Wall Street Crash. President P?ts (who died in a Russian psychiatric hospital in 1952) was trying to counter both Nazism and Communism. Not an easy trick for a country of just over one million inhabitants squashed between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia.

Vladimir Pool (who had been the deputy boss of the Estonian branch of the KGB) wrote this list of Estonian deportees in about 1991, at about the time that everyone realised that the Soviet Union would fall apart, and that those who had worked for the Russian-dominated secret police would not be treated kindly. He still had access to KGB records, some of which were conveniently destroyed later. He will, quite likely, have done this as a gesture to save his skin, now that everything was going to be revealed.

But, despite all the fun I had translating the mockery of hypocritical bourgeois ?sthete and womaniser Bertolt Brecht, I take my hat off to Vladimir Pool, whatever his motives, for listing in painful detail the names of people probably as bourgeois and venal as Brecht, but who were murdered in Russia during WWII, while everyone's attention was on Hitler, not on foreign slave labourers and ex-politicians from the Baltics, dying off or being shot in Vorkuta and elsewhere.

[Daniel del Real]

Anyone have any thoughts on this list? Seems like something the Forum could get behind as an English based WLF.

As for me, I've read only The Skating Rink, Ghosts and Death in Spring. The first I really enjoyed, though I'm guessing there are better books on the list. Ghosts, methinks, I was too dense to comprehend. Death in Spring I wasn't really that impressed by.

And indeed, congrats Eric.

I'm pleased to see many translations from Spanish that seems to have a really good quality. There are some authors that I expected to see here like Bola?o and Aira, both having an expansion worldwide.

I'm really happy to see Fernando del Paso's Noticias del Imperio translated. I haven't read it but my father is a big fan of his works and tells me this is a great novel. Difficult to translate since it is a really long one and with many regionalisms. I hope this novel has a got shot to get the prize or at least the short list.

Surprised to see Argentinian Juan Filloy, an author that is no longer read that much in the Latin American world. Good to introduced him to the English-speaking world.
Finally I have no idea of who is Jos? Manuel Prieto. I'll try to find out.

I'd like to join the group in congratulating Eric for this achieve. Megalomaniac or not, this proves you're doing a great job Eric!

[saliotthomas]

Cheerio and bravo Rico, hope you make it to the top and if you win, think of your co-forumists over here and send us a signe copy with a photo*


I asume you are not this Eric Dickens .

[nnyhav]

Meanwhile, in other translation prizes:
Translation Prizes for 2009 - Times Literary Supplement

(via LitSaloon, whose prop is one of the BTBA judges; yo stewart howzabout shuttling this thread over to the translation loom?)

[miercuri]

Congratulations Eric! I'll be rooting for you!

[e joseph]

From last years batch (Three Percent: Best Translated Book of 2008: The Fiction Longlist) there were some books I really enjoyed - 2666, Senselessness and Tranquility - so I'm looking forward to seeing what the list this year has to offer.

Something about Claus' Wonder looks good to me. The Confessions of Noa Weber as well. And after Daniel's comment, Fernando del Paso's novel sounds interesting, and giant.

As an aside, off of Three Percent's Honorable Mention list, I've read Moya's She-Devil in the Mirror and Ludmilla Petrushevskaya's There Once Lived a Woman Who Tried to Kill Her Neighbor's Baby. Both were entertaining in their own right (the second moreso I thought), but neither would have been shortlist contenders.

[heidiadonis]

Congratulations, Eric!

[Stiffelio]

Just caught this thread. What a mixed assortment of titles in contention! Interesting stuff.

Congratulations to Eric and my best wishes to win it.

[Eric]

Yes, Saliothomas, I'm a White, middle-aged, middle-class male, the sort of people that the politically correct run a mile from when awarding prizes. That's why I torment you with Afrikaners, as I'm not keen on inverted racism.

As for the other 24 books on the Open Letter longlist - this list shows there are quite a few things being translated into English, although the mainstream press (e,g, Guardian, Independent) often keep rather quiet about them.

Looking through this longlist, there are quite a few authors I have never heard of, as I don't specialise in Latin American literature, or Hispanic literature as a whole. And in all truth, although I live in Holland, I have never read anything by Gerbrand Bakker, whereas the other Dutch-language novel is by the very famous Fleming Hugo Claus. But being a Baltophile, Richardas Gavelis' "Vilnius Poker" looks interesting. Pamuk and Le Cl?zio are also in evidence. Jerzy Pilch is an author I've heard quite a lot about. And Merc? Rodoreda is a Catalan classic author.

The theme of the Abdoulrahman Waberi book interests me, because it is something I have thought about now and again: what if immigration were to flow the other way, from the impoverished West to the United States of Africa? But Mr Waberi, moving from Djibouti to France (not vice-versa) in the 1980s, knows about the reality. Unfortunately, Africa has not yet achieved "United States of..." status; this may take a few years.

Wouldn't it be fun if Britain had a similar prize - all translations, most of which of recent books? Because I'm a British translator, but I'm on that list because I translated for a U.S. publishing house. Standard English is the same language in the USA and the UK, whatever wits like George Bernard Shaw (an emigr? Irishman, who spent the last 70-odd years of his life living in London and Hertfordshire) may have claimed about America and England and their respective "languages". Dialogue is certainly different, but the Brit-Yank translation gap is not unbridgeable.

[Diotima]

Congratulations, Eric!

[Liam]

congrats Eric.

Congrtulations, Eric!

Congratulations, Eric.

Congratulations Eric!

Congratulations, Eric!

Congratulations to Eric

Congratulations, Eric!

Now, now, we don't want this to go to his head, do we?



L.

[nnyhav]

So I made good on my fly-by of Idlewild, which is hosting BTBA (shortlist Feb16 award Mar10 so I got a couple more landings [yep, upstairs] there in prospect) and added to my luggage:

Juan Filloy, Op Oloop (trans Lisa Dillman)
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Memories of the Future (Joanne Turnbull)
Cao Naiqian, There’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night (John Balcom)
Mati Unt, Brecht at Night (our very owned Eric)

[Daniel del Real]

I was reading about this topic in a mexican newspaper, El Universal, when I suddenly read this

Libros del lituano Ricardos Gavelis, del estonio Eric Dickens o del noruego Jan Kjaertad dan la batalla por el premio, al igual que novelas de autores lejanos y desconocidos, como In the Unites States of Africa, de Abdourahman Waberi, de Djibouti (quien escribe en franc?s), o The Zafarani, del egipcio Gamal al-Ghitani, que publica en ?rabe.

So, apparently Eric, you wrote the book and they converted you into an Estonian writer

Here's the full note if some of you want to check it

La literatura traducida del espaol se abre paso en EU - El Universal - Cultura