The International Booker Prize 2024 Longlist has been announced with thirteen titles of fiction translated into English.
The longlist is as follows:
- Not a River by Selva Almada (translated by Annie McDermott)
- Simpatico by Rodrigo Blanco Calderon (translated by Noel Hernandez Gonzalez and Daniel Hahn)
- Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated by Michael Hofmann)
- The Details by Ia Genberg (translated by Kira Josefsson)
- White Nights by Urszula Honek (translated by Kate Webster)
- Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong (translated by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae)
- A Dictator Calls by Ismail Kadare (translated by John Hodgson)
- The Silver Bone by Andrey Kurkov (translated by Boris Dralyuk)
- What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma (translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey)
- Lost on Me by Veronica Raimo (translated by Leah Janeczko)
- The House on Via Gemito by Domenico Starnone (translated by Oonagh Stransky)
- Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz)
- Undiscovered by Gabriela Wiener (translated by Julia Sanches)
From a protest on the top of a factory chimney in South Korea to a transformative fishing trip in remote Argentina, from the violent streets of Kyiv in 1919 to a devastating sexual relationship in 1980s East Berlin, our longlisted books offer stunning evocations of place and time. Here are voices that reflect original angles of observation. In compelling, at times lyrical modes of expression, they tell stories that give us insight into – among other things – the ways political power drives our lives.
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. 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”.
What my fellow jurors and I hoped to find are books that, together, we could recommend to English-speaking readers. After narrowing down 149 submitted titles to these 13, we are delighted to say, “Here, we’ve scoured the world and brought back these gifts.”
The prize awards £25,000 to the author and £25,000 to the translator, in recognition of the essential work of translators in bringing fiction to a wider audience. I need to read more translated fiction, so will be keen to investigate these titles further.
The shortlist of 6 titles will be announced on 9 April and the winner on 21 May 2024.