International Booker Prize longlist announced

The longlist for the 2021 International Booker Prize for translated fiction has been announced.

The 13 longlisted titles are:

• I Live in the Slums (Can Xue, trans from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping, Yale University Press)
• At Night All Blood is Black (David Diop, trans from French by Anna Mocschovakis, Pushkin)
• The Pear Field (Nana Ekvtimishvili, trans from Georgian by Elizabeth Heighway, Peirene Press)
• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed (Mariana Enríquez, trans from Spanish by Megan McDowell, Granta)
• When We Cease to Understand the World (Benjamín Labatut, trans from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West, Pushkin)
• The Perfect Nine: The Epic Gikuyu and Mumbi (Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, trans from Gikuyu by the author, Harvill Secker)
• The Employees (Olga Ravn, trans from Danish by Martin Aitken, Lolli Editions)
• Summer Brother (Jaap Robben, trans from Dutch by David Doherty, World Editions)
• An Inventory of Losses (Judith Schalansky, trans from German by Jackie Smith, MacLehose Press)
• Minor Detail (Adania Shibli, trans from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette, Text)
• In Memory of Memory (Maria Stepanova, trans from Russian by Sasha Dugdale, Fitzcarraldo Editions)
• Wretchedness (Andrzej Tichý, trans from Swedish by Nichola Smalley, And Other Stories)
• The War of the Poor (Éric Vuillard, trans from French by Mark Polizzotti, Picador).

The £50,000 (A$90,450) prize will be shared equally between the winning writer and translator, and each shortlisted author and translator also receives £1000 ($1800).

The shortlist will be announced on 22 April, and the winner on 2 June. For more information about this year’s longlist, see the Booker Prize website.

Category: International awards International news