Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist

[BlogSpy]

They've announced the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011 -- fifteen titles, of which seven are under review at the complete review (many of the others, alas, are not yet available in the US):

• Fame by Daniel Kehlmann; translated by Carol Brown Janeway
• I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson; translated by Charlotte Barslund
• The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk; translated by Maureen Freely
• Red April by Santiago Roncagliolo; translated by Edith Grossmann
• To the End of the Land by David Grossman; translated by Jessica Cohen
• Villain by Yoshida Shuichi; translated by Philip GabrielVisitation by Jenny Erpenbeck; translated by Susan Bernofsky

Of course, it's interesting to compare the longlist to that of the Best Translated Book Award -- though, given different US and UK publication dates (and complicated by the fact that the Independent prize unaccountably doesn't reveal what books were considered ...) the two prizes have only limited overlap (the Pamuk, for example, was on last year's BTB longlist ...); still, the Erpenbeck, Grossman, and Petterson did make both.
Like the BTB, the IFFP is short on non-European languages -- nothing from the Arabic or Chinese, though at least one Japanese title (though ... the Yoshida ? seriously ?). Still, a pretty good-looking list -- and I look forward to several of these titles, once they become available in the US.
See also judge Boyd Tonkin's overview, Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: Latin America is back with a boom.
The IFFP shortlist will be announced 11 April; the BTB shortlist on 24 March.

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[Bjorn]

Anyone familiar with any of these books? I've read Petterson's book and liked it, even if I didn't fall completely in love with it. Kehlmann's Measuring The World was underwhelming, but maybe he's gotten better?

[accidie]

Bjorn, Fame was even weaker. I liked the structure of it, but the book was uneven, and sections of it that are about a character who, I gathered somewhere or other, is mean to represent Kehlmann himself alternate between being annoying and being tedious.

[Stiffelio]

I read Juan Gabriel Vásquez's The Secret History of Costaguana and I thought it was very well told story.

[Mirabell]

Kehlmann's Measuring The World was underwhelming, but maybe he's gotten better?

no.


Clarissa has praised the Grossman book. I own a copy of the German translation of Red April somewhere. Anyone read it? Erpenbeck, well, the least said the better.

[kpjayan]

I own a copy of the German translation of Red April somewhere. Anyone read it?

Same case with me( English translation). Daniel advised me to read this in April.. Will be doing so..

[Bubba]

I read Red April. It wasn't incompetent, I suppose, but why anyone would nominate it for a prize, much less actually give it one, is beyond me.

[Daniel del Real]

no.


Clarissa has praised the Grossman book. I own a copy of the German translation of Red April somewhere. Anyone read it? Erpenbeck, well, the least said the better.

Red April is a very good book. A very entertaining read that really deepens you into the Peruvian hysteria in the 90's, after years of attacks of guerrilla group Sendero Luminoso. Crimes unsolved been investigated by a man that has to clarify if it is a serial killer or members of Sendero who are the authors of these murders. And if you can read it during holy week, it gives a plus to the reading.

I've read some short stories by Barrera Tyszka, and they were ok, but nothing impressive. He is from Venezuela and actually this book won a prestigious prize in the Spanish editorial world.

Now my question is why would you nominate a book that evidently failed at it's purpose like The Museum of Innocence. It has to be one of Pamuk's worse, and a book that should be 200 pages long, no more.

[Bjorn]

And the winner is Santiago Roncagliolo's Red April.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011...-fiction-prize

[Daniel del Real]

I'm glad for him, he's a genuine good young writer and this prize will be important to be more known widely. Of course he's not the best out there or anything like that, but he is a fair good writer with a great novel.