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According to the judges of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize, "the best works of fiction translated from around the world" of the past year have been written mainly by women.
The Man Booker International Prize is awarded annually to the selection of judges for the best book written in a language other than English, then translated into English and published in Britain or Ireland. The jury selected six finalists tonight (April 9) from 13 titles, with six weeks to go before the announcement of the winner in 2019. All selected books, except one, were written by women and all six were translated by women.
Among the finalists, five languages (Arabic, French, German, Polish and Spanish), as well as five countries and three continents represented. Five of the six submissions came from small publishing houses, including two books by Fitzcarraldo Editions, the publisher of last year 's winner.
"Wisdom in all its forms is here," said Bettany Hughes, chair of this year's jury, in a press release. "Unexpected and unpredictable narratives have forced us to choose this dynamic short list. Subversive and intellectually ambitious, with benevolent flashes of spirit, each book nourishes a creative conversation. We were struck by the lucidity and flexible strength of all translations. "
Here are the six books selected for the award:
Celestial Bodies tells the story of three sisters of Al Awafi. Oman village that sees the country "evolve from a traditional society, owning slaves, redefining itself slowly after the colonial era to the crossroads of its present complex," according to its Sandstone Press publisher .
The English translation of this unusual autobiography, translated from its original French by Alison Strayer, "traces the collapse of Catholic prudence, attacked by secularism, the pill, the legalization of abortion and the "women's movement," and also tells "how we were gradually driven, guilt-free, to ever greater levels of consumption," according to the New York Times (paywall).
The original German retraces the story of two men, united by an unusual bond, who together follow in the footsteps of the great Japanese poet Matsuo Basho in his journey to see the moon rise above Matsushima pine islands. Jen Calleja translated it into English.
If Tokarczuk's book wins this year's Man Booker International Prize, it could give the author the unusual distinction of winning two years in a row, since Tokarczuk was awarded the prize last year for his novel Flights . (The Man Booker International Award has only been in existence since 2016, but for almost 50 years, the English Man Booker Award has been rewarded only by three winners.) Drive Your Plow is a mystery of murder in which an eccentric recluse in a remote Polish village is involved in the investigation of the death of members of a local hunting club. The book was controversial in Poland for addressing themes related to Catholicism and environmentalism and was translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
The only finalist of a male author, this novel is a story of political and literary investigation. . He plunges deep into two political badbadinations and "reveals how they contain the seeds of violence that has raged since then in Colombia," according to his publisher, MacLehose Press. Anne McLean translated the Spanish translation.
The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán
The Remainder was translated from Spanish by Sophie Hughes. It tells the story of Felipe, Iquela and Paloma, three friends in Santiago, Chile, who go on a road trip and "end up facing generations of family suffering and the legacy of the Chilean dictatorship" , according to the New York Times (Paywall).
The jury was composed of Bettany Hughes, author and historian; Maureen Freely, president of English PEN, a global writers' badociation that promotes literature and the rights of writers around the world; Angie Hobbs, a philosopher; Pankaj Mishra, journalist and author; and Elnathan John, novelist and satirist
The award-winning writer-translator couple will share £ 50,000 ($ 65,415) and will benefit almost from the boom in book sales. Each of the selected authors and translators will also receive £ 1,000 ($ 1,308).
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