Man Booker International Prize 2019 shortlist announced

The shortlist for the 2019 Man Booker International Prize has been announced.

The shortlisted titles are:

• Celestial Bodies (Jokha Alharthi, trans by Marilyn Booth, Sandstone Press)
• The Years (Annie Ernaux, trans by Alison L Strayer, Seven Stories)
• The Pine Islands (Marion Poschmann, trans by Jen Calleja, Serpent’s Tail)
• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (Olga Tokarczuk, trans by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Text)
• The Shape of the Ruins (Juan Gabriel Vásquez, trans by Anne McLean, MacLehose Press)
• The Remainder (Alia Trabucco Zeran, trans by Sophie Hughes, And Other Stories).

Chosen from a longlist of 13, the shortlist is dominated by independent publishers and includes work spanning five languages (Arabic, French, German, Polish and Spanish).

Chair of the judging panel Bettany Hughes said of the shortlist: ‘Subversive and intellectually ambitious with welcome flashes of wit, each book nourishes creative conversation. We were struck by the lucidity and supple strength of all the translations.’

The Man Booker International Prize is awarded to a book translated into English. Prior to 2016, the prize was awarded biennially to a body of work.

The £50,000 (A$91,620) prize will be shared equally between the winning writer and translator, and each shortlisted author and translator will also receive £1000 (A$1830). The winner will be announced on 21 May.

For more information about the prize, see the Man Booker website.

Category: Awards International news