Amos Oz and David Grossman on Man Booker longlist
Judas by Oz and A Horse Walks Into A Bar by Grossman are both in the running for a £50,000 prize
Francine Wolfisz is the Features Editor for Jewish News.
Israeli authors Amos Oz and David Grossman have been named on this year’s longlist for the Man Booker International Prize 2017.
A total of 13 works, translated into English from 11 different languages, will be narrowed into a shortlist of six next month, before a winner is announced in June.
The winning author and their translator will split a £50,000 prize, while each shortlisted runner-up and translator will receive £1,000.
This year’s line-up includes A Horse Walks Into A Bar by Jerusalem-born author David Grossman, and translated by Jessica Cohen.
Hailed by critics as a “virtuoso piece of writing”, the novel revolves around a veteran stand-up comic, whose life crumbles around him.
Amos Oz, regarded as Israel’s most famous living author, is also on the list for Judas, translated by Nicholas de Lange, which is a coming-of-age tale set in the still-divided Jerusalem of 1959-60.
Edinburgh International Book Festival director and chair of the judging panel, Nick Barley, said: “It’s been an exceptionally strong year for translated fiction.
“From powerful depictions and shocking exposes of historical and contemporary horrors to intimate and compelling portraits of people going about their daily lives, our longlisted books are above all breathtakingly well-written.
“Fiction in translation is flourishing: in these times when walls are being built, this explosion of brilliant ideas from around the world arriving into the English language feels more important than ever.”
The panel also included award-winning Jewish writer and translator Daniel Hahn, Turkish novellist Elif Shafak, On Black Sisters’ Street author Chika Unigwe, and award-winning poet Helen Mort.
The full longlist is as follows:
Compass – Mathias Enard (France) translated by Charlotte Mandell.
Swallowing Mercury – Wioletta Greg (Poland) translated by Eliza Marciniak.
A Horse Walks Into a Bar – David Grossman (Israel) translated by Jessica Cohen.
War and Turpentine – Stefan Hertmans (Belgium) translated by David McKay.
The Unseen – Roy Jacobsen (Norway) translated by Don Bartlett.
The Traitor’s Niche – Ismail Kadare (Albania) translated by John Hodgson.
Fish Have No Feet – Jon Kalman Stefansson (Iceland) translated by Phil Roughton.
The Explosion Chronicles – Yan Lianke (China) translated by Carlos Rojas.
Black Moses – Alain Mabanckou (France) translated by Helen Stevenson.
Bricks and Mortar – Clemens Meyer (Germany) translated by Katy Derbyshire.
Mirror, Shoulder, Signal – Dorthe Nors (Denmark) translated by Misha Hoekstra.
Judas – Amos Oz (Israel) translated by Nicholas de Lange.
Fever Dream – Samanta Schweblin (Argentina) translated by Megan McDowell.
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