#MBI2019
The Man Booker International Prize 2019 shortlist was just announced a few minutes ago!
As announced at the beginning of March, I’m part of the Shadow Panel Judges (with these amazing people!) this year, and you can see I have reviewed most of the longlist titles!
The official longlist was:
Author (Original Language –Country/territory), translator, title (publisher/imprint)
- Jokha Alharthi (Arabic / Omani), Marilyn Booth, Celestial Bodies (Sandstone Press Ltd) – READ
- Can Xue (Chinese / Chinese), Annelise Finegan Wasmoen, Love In The New Millennium (Yale University Press)
- Annie Ernaux (French / French), Alison L. Strayer, The Years (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Hwang Sok-yong (Korean / Korean), Sora Kim-Russell, At Dusk (Scribe, UK)
- Mazen Maarouf (Arabic / Icelandic and Palestinian), Jonathan Wright, Jokes For The Gunmen (Granta, Portobello Books)
- Hubert Mingarelli (French / French), Sam Taylor, Four Soldiers (Granta, Portobello Books)
- Marion Poschmann (German / German), Jen Calleja, The Pine Islands (Profile Books, Serpent’s Tail)
- Samanta Schweblin (Spanish / Argentine and Italian), Megan McDowell, Mouthful Of Birds (Oneworld)
- Sara Stridsberg (Swedish / Swedish), Deborah Bragan-Turner, The Faculty Of Dreams (Quercus, MacLehose Press) – READ
- Olga Tokarczuk (Polish / Polish), Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Spanish / Colombian), Anne McLean, The Shape Of The Ruins (Quercus, MacLehose Press)
- Tommy Wieringa (Dutch / Dutch), Sam Garrett, The Death Of Murat Idrissi (Scribe, UK) – READ
- Alia Trabucco Zeran (Spanish / Chilean and Italian), Sophie Hughes, The Remainder (And Other Stories)
The links send you to my reviews.
The titles in bold are the ones I haven’t reviewed yet.
Here is the official shortlist:
- Jokha Alharthi (Arabic / Omani), Marilyn Booth, Celestial Bodies (Sandstone Press Ltd)
- Annie Ernaux (French / French), Alison L. Strayer, The Years (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Marion Poschmann (German / German), Jen Calleja, The Pine Islands (Profile Books, Serpent’s Tail)
- Olga Tokarczuk (Polish / Polish), Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Spanish / Colombian), Anne McLean, The Shape Of The Ruins (Quercus, MacLehose Press)
- Alia Trabucco Zeran (Spanish / Chilean and Italian), Sophie Hughes, The Remainder (And Other Stories)
Our shadow panel shortlist will be revealed next week.
Here is my own personal shortlist, with actually 5 out of 6 of the official shortlist.
So glad they didn’t keep any of the horrible ones!
- The Years
- The Remainder
- The Pine Islands
- The Death of Murat Idrissi
- The Shape of the Ruins
- Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of The Dead
The top two were really gems for me.
Three titles of the longlist were absolutely horrible, and I didn’t read Jokes For The Gunmen.
WHAT DOES YOUR SHORTLIST LOOK LIKE?
Words And Peace 
I will accept the shortlist as is. I have only read The Years but I plan to read Drive Your Plow and The Shape of the Ruins. Thank you for posting the lists and for your reviews.
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You should also try The Remainder. I think it’s fabulous at the level of the writing and translation
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My favorite book awards are the Goodreads Choice awards and the World Fantasy Awards.
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why not? Any book award is good to me! I love this Goodreads group, they keep track of a lot of awards, all over the world: https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/186163-the-mookse-and-the-gripes
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I’ve never heard of that group, but I will check it out because awards really make me pay attention to a book. I am going to read The Fifth Season because the series won SO many awards.
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If you are into book awards, it’s definitely a group to follow, it has very smart and fascinating discussions.
Enjoy The Fifth Season. I personally almost never read fantasy, apart from books by Neil Gaiman for the most part
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I love fantasy! I read all of GOT, Harry Potter and many many others.
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I probably would if I were 35 years younger, lol
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Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to reading material!
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absolutely. Now, when judging for a translation award, some elements have to be taken into consideration, that have nothing to do with personal preferences
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I understand that. I haven’t read any translations before.
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Oh wow, you should try some of the genres you like translated from another language into English. You would get even more off the genre. Let me know if you need some recommendations
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I love YA fantasy and thrillers.. I love so many more books than just those, but that would be a great place to start. Or any fantasy in general. I would love recommendations!
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This one (YA fantasy) is very familiar right now. Translated from the French: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40969531-a-winter-s-promise. Did you see I just launched a French Book Box? Have a look, maybe that would be a good easy for you to discover more of these. See here: https://francebooktours.com/french-book-box/
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Okay thank you so much! I will check out both of those links. I think that YA fantasy title might be a great place to start. A few of my Goodreads friends seemed to enjoy it as well.
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great
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