{"id":741,"date":"2019-03-21T12:25:05","date_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/?p=741"},"modified":"2019-03-21T12:25:05","modified_gmt":"2019-03-21T12:25:05","slug":"man-booker-international-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.exeter.ac.uk\/translatingwomen\/2019\/03\/21\/man-booker-international-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"The Man Booker International 2019 longlist: picks, celebrations, and regrets"},"content":{"rendered":"

The picks<\/h2>\n

Last week saw the announcement of the Man Booker Prize longlist<\/a>, and with it a remarkable and welcome surge of women in translation: more than half of the thirteen books selected this year are by women writers. The two books I was particularly delighted to see on the longlist were Olga Tokarczuk\u2019s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead<\/em><\/a>, a funny, subversive\u00a0and insightful pseudo-noir murder mystery translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones for Fitzcarraldo Editions (full review here<\/a>), and Alia Trabucco Zer\u00e1n\u2019s The Remainder<\/em><\/a>,\u00a0a glorious tumult of historical memory, friendship, guilt, families and death, with raining ash and a lot of pisco, translated by Sophie Hughes for And Other Stories (short review here<\/a>, a more in-depth one to follow).\u00a0Drive Your Plow\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0The Remainder\u00a0<\/em>are very different narratives, with distinct preoccupations:\u00a0an elderly woman struggles to be taken seriously in rural Poland in Drive Your Plow<\/em>, and three young Chileans weighed down by a past they can never experience go on the road trip of a lifetime in The Remainder<\/em>. But these two books\u00a0also have plenty in common: they are both brave, distinctive, brilliantly translated, and a window onto the culture they represent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The celebrations<\/h2>\n

As you can imagine, I find it immensely heartening to see a clear move away from the some of the biases that have traditionally prevailed in literary prizes: in an article for In Other Words<\/em>, Daniel Hahn<\/a>\u00a0wrote of the 2017 Man Booker International prize that the longlist reflected \u201ca significant gender imbalance (as we see every year), and a significant bias towards European writers and European languages (as we see every year, too).\u201d Hahn goes on to note that these imbalances were indicative of the overall submissions pool, and so this leads me to wonder whether the tipping away from gender bias and eurocentrism on the 2019 longlist might also reflect moves in this direction more generally. Nine languages and twelve countries are represented in the thirteen books, and here\u2019s where they’re coming from:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Europe is not quite as dominant as in previous years, which suggests the beginnings of a shift towards greater diversity and globalisation. As for languages, Spanish is best represented with three of the thirteen books:\"\"<\/p>\n

All of the books translated from Spanish are from Latin America rather than peninsular Spain, which also partly accounts for the more diverse geographical spread. Arabic and French tie for second place, and of the remaining six, two are Asian and four European.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not only women writers who make up the majority of this list: independent publishers are the big winners, with eleven of the thirteen entries. The year when gendered and eurocentric biases are less evident is the same year that independent publishers dominate the longlist, suggesting a direct correlation between the activism of smaller presses and increased parity in the translated literature market. As MBI judge Maureen Freely noted in\u00a0an article in The Guardian<\/em><\/a>, “the really good independents have become the cultural talent scouts\u201d, and\u00a0The Remainder <\/em>and Drive Your Plow <\/em>are stellar examples of this: The Remainder <\/em>is a debut novel published by And Other Stories as part of their commitment to the Year of Publishing Women, and Tokarczuk was discovered by Jacques Testard of Fitzcarraldo Editions because of his determination to seek out a Polish author as a response to the backlash against the Polish community in the wake of the Brexit referendum.<\/p>\n

The regrets…<\/h2>\n

Though there is much to celebrate, I can\u2019t offer a reaction without mentioning the books I wish had been on the longlist. I am fully aware that I have not read all thirteen longlisted books, and that my opinions are necessarily inflected with my own subjectivities, but for what it\u2019s worth, I am baffled that these two did not feature on the longlist:<\/span><\/p>\n

Disoriental<\/em><\/a> (N\u00e9gar Djavadi, translated by Tina Kover for Europa Editions): this is not just one of the best books I\u2019ve read for this project, it\u2019s one of the best books I\u2019ve ever read. A sweeping family saga set in twentieth-century Iran, Disoriental<\/em> is also a personal story of exile and (dis)integration in Europe. It\u2019s ambitious, witty, wrenching, and the translation by Tina Kover is exquisite.<\/p>\n

Resistance<\/em><\/a>\u00a0(Juli\u00e1n Fuks, translated by Daniel Hahn for Charco Press): another story of exile and an intensely poetic imbrication of the personal and the historical. Resistance\u00a0<\/i>is a haunting account of Fuks\u2019s troubled relationship with his adopted brother, and the consequences of displacement. The writing is taut, subtle, and lyrical, and Hahn\u2019s translation is flawless.<\/p>\n

The shortlist?<\/h2>\n

I fervently hope that both Drive Your Plow <\/em>and The Remainder <\/em>will make it onto the shortlist. Last year\u2019s winner and a debut author, two fantastic books and two impeccable translations. I\u2019ll leave you with a favourite quotation from each:<\/p>\n

\u201cCan it really be true? Is this nightmare really happening? This mass killing, cruel, impassive, automatic, without any pangs of conscience, without the slightest pause for thought, though plenty of thought is applied to ingenious philosophies and theologies. What sort of a world is this, where killing and pain are the norm? What on earth is wrong with us?\u201d
\nDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cthe heat intensifies and I push it away and the ash is falling and I push it away and the memories come flooding back and I push them away too, and I think that I could just let go, let it all out and then leave, but no, I don\u2019t, cos if I did that I\u2019d get lost and I\u2019ve already got enough missing people on my hands; I\u2019m never going missing, never ever.\u201d
\nThe Remainder<\/em>
\n<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Further reading:<\/h2>\n

Tony offers the Man Booker International shadow panel\u2019s official response to the longlist<\/a><\/p>\n

Michael at Translated Lit does a roundup of the longlist<\/a><\/p>\n

Jess and Will at Books and Bao choose their favourites<\/a>, with links to reviews of several of the longlisted books<\/p>\n

My full reviews of two other longlisted books:<\/p>\n

Samanta Schweblin,\u00a0Mouthful of Birds<\/em>, translated by Megan McDowell (Oneworld Books, 2019)<\/a><\/p>\n

Annie Ernaux,\u00a0The Years<\/em>, translated by Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018)<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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