The International Booker Prize: A Big Prize for Small Presses

The International Booker Prize, for those who don’t know, is an annual award presented in the UK. The award was originally biannual and available to writers of English and foreign authors with English translated books; however, since 2016, the award has become exclusive to translated texts.

The longlist for this year’s award, though, seems to be something quite special. Generally, most nominees for the prize come from big-shot publishers or were simply big-shot writers. This year, the focus is on the little guys. According to Dr. Richard Mansell, the number of nominated books translated by the “Big Five” of publishing has dropped significantly over the years.

So, what does this mean? It means that publishers are losing their “holier than thou” grip on translated fiction. Mansell says that “[the] power of publishers [is] not as stable as [it was].” While big publishers were once responsible for over half (55%) of the award’s titles, in 2016 they were only responsible for 36%. This decline has allowed a larger variety of translated fiction to make its way to English-speaker readers, displaying a unique set of stories. In this list alone, thirteen stories have been listed, representing eight languages.

The shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize is set to be released on April 2, 2020, but in the meantime, you can check out all the nominated texts and see which one you like the best. Fair warning, a few of these texts have not yet been released, but are available for pre-order.

Nominated Texts:

• Red Dog by Willem Anker (Afrikaans – South Africa). Translated by Michiel Heyns
• The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar (Farsi – Iran).
• The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (Spanish – Argentina). Translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh
• The Other Name: Septology I – II by Jon Fosse (Norwegian – Norway). Translated by Damion Searls
• The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili (German – Georgia). Translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin
• Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq (French – France). Translated by Shaun Whiteside.
• Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (German – Germany). Translated by Ross Benjamin
• Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (Spanish – Mexico). Translated by Sophie Hughes
• The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Japanese – Japan). Translated by Stephen Snyder
• Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano (French – France). Translated by Sophie Lewis and Jennifer Higgins
• Little Eyes by Samanta Schweblin (Spanish – Argentina). Translated by Megan McDowell
• The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Dutch – Netherlands). Translated by Michele Hutchison
• Mac and His Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas (Spanish – Spain). Translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes.

Featured Image via Man Booker Prize.