Baku, March 12, AZERTAC
The International Booker Prize 2024 longlist has been announced, with 13 books competing for the world’s most significant award for a single work of translated fiction, according to the Irish Times.
The judges’ selection features “books that speak of courage and kindness, of the vital importance of community, and of the effects of standing up to tyranny”, according to Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the International Booker Prize.
The inaugural winner of the prize in 2005, Ismail Kadare, has been included in the longlist for his book A Dictator Calls. Nine authors and nine translators feature for the first time.
A quarter of the list is written by South American authors, with books representing Brazil, Argentina, Peru and Venezuela.
The longlisted books are translated from 10 original languages: Albanian, Dutch, German, Italian, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
There are more than 50 years between the youngest and oldest authors on the longlist, and one of the books was published in its original language over 20 years ago.
The International Booker Prize introduces readers to the best novels and short story collections from around the world that have been translated into English and published in the UK and/or the Republic.
The prize also recognises the work of translators, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and translator, and a prize of £5,000 divided equally between the author and translator for each of the shortlisted titles.
The longlist was chosen by the 2024 judging panel, consisting of broadcaster and journalist Eleanor Wachtel as chair; award-winning poet Natalie Diaz; internationally acclaimed novelist Romesh Gunesekera; groundbreaking visual artist William Kentridge; and writer, editor and translator Aaron Robertson.
Their selection was made from 149 books published between May 1st, 2023 and April 30th, 2024 and submitted by publishers – the highest number since the prize was relaunched in its current format in 2016.
This year’s submissions were comprised of books originally written in 32 languages, up from 27 in 2023.
“I’ve always looked to fiction as a way to inhabit other places, other sensibilities. And through my experience of interviewing international authors I have come to marvel at the ability of translators to expand those worlds, to deepen our understanding of different cultures, and to build a global community of readers not constricted by borders,” Ms Wachtel said.
“That same excitement informed the discussions with my fellow panellists since last summer. It’s stimulating to hear about a book that’s been read from a different perspective and presented in a most articulate way. As William Kentridge put it, we are looking to be ‘complicit in the making of the meaning of a book’.”
A variety of fictional forms are represented on this year’s longlist, from magical realism to autofiction, from allegory to short stories, from books that span multiple generations to one constructed around a three-minute conversation.
The six books shortlisted for this year’s prize will be announced on Tuesday, April 9th. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, May 21st.