The two translation prize shortlists are out – and it’s exciting to see how many different languages (and countries) are represented.  I’ve still only read three of the books on the BTBA list – and of those I’ll keep my money on Dowlatabadi for the win.  There is something so visceral about The Colonel.  It’s a book that encompasses all the senses – particularly in the opening chapters when the colonel is summoned to bury his daughter.  The darkness, the rain, the smell of cigarettes – the density of the prose – they’re all still with me though it’s been months since I put it down.  Not every book does that.  Certainly not The Hunger Angel or The Planets – both good books by great authors. But they don’t even come close to The Colonel in scope, technique or plot.

The 2013 Best Translated Book Award Fiction

• The Planets by Sergio Chejfec/Heather Cleary, translator (Spanish)
• Prehistoric Times by Eric Chevillard/Alyson Waters, translator (French)
• The Colonel by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi/Tom Patterdale, translator (Persian)
• Satantango by László Krasznahorkai/George Szirtes, translator (Hungarian)
• Autoportrait by Edouard Levé/Lorin Stein, translator (French)
• A Breath of Life: Pulsations by Clarice Lispector/Johnny Lorenz, translator (Portuguese)
• The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller/Philip Boehm, translator (German)
• Maidenhair by Mikhail Shishkin/Marian Schwartz, translator (Russian)
• Transit by Abdourahman A. Waberi/David Ball & Nicole Ball, translators (French)
• My Father’s Book by Urs Widmer/Donal McLaughlin, translator (German)

As for the IFFP:  neither of the two books I read on the long list – HHhH and Black Bazaar – made it to the short list.  I’m not surprised, though I think the judges are undervaluing how hard it is to write like Alain Mabanckou writes and make it look easy.  Even in translation.  Regardless, as a result I don’t have anything to contribute to this particular short list other than that Ismail Kadare is one of my favorite authors.

The 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

• Bundu by Chris Barnard/Michiel Heyns, translator (Afrikaans)
• The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker/David Colmer, translator (Dutch)
• Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas/Rosalind Harvey & Anne McLean, translators (Spanish)
• The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare/John Hodgson, translators (Albanian)
• Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman/Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia, translators (Spanish)
• Trieste by Daša Drndić/Ellen Elias-Bursać, translator (Croatian)