Comments on: Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2009

By: book publishers

book publishers — Sun, 02 May 2010 01:20:07 +0000

I liked Philippe Toussaint’s Camera well enough, but not nearly as much as I thought I would, and I was the only one who was fond of it (as I recall) — so, out it went!

By: Anne Brooke

Anne Brooke — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:59:07 +0000

I must admit (shock! horror!) to being one of those rare people who thought The Blue Fox was simply an exercise in dullness. Might have made a nice prose poem though, if it had been much much shorter …

==:O

Anne B

By: Stewart

Stewart — Thu, 14 May 2009 19:25:00 +0000

The prize has been won by Evelio Rosero’s The Armies.

By: Dag Solstad: Novel 11, Book 18 « Asylum

Dag Solstad: Novel 11, Book 18 « Asylum — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 08:03:05 +0000

[…] 8:00 am by John Self The second book in my short (as in, this could be it) trot through some of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize longlist titles, is Dag Solstad’s Novel 11, Book 18. I knew I wanted to read it as soon as I saw the […]

By: Linn Ullmann: A Blessed Child « Asylum

Linn Ullmann: A Blessed Child « Asylum — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 08:02:19 +0000

[…] decided to try to read a few of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize titles, which announced its longlist last month. There will only be a few of these (even though the list looks more interesting than the […]

By: John Self

John Self — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:02:12 +0000

…And I am currently reading one of them while you are currently reading the other. A perfect circle!

By: Stewart

Stewart — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:13:43 +0000

Another little snippet of information about the two Sarah Death translations. One (The Director) is about Ingmar Bergman, while the other (A Blessed Child) is by Linn Ullmann, daughter of Bergman.

By: Stewart

Stewart — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:39:45 +0000

Though I wonder if it would have qualified, as the prize must go to a “contemporary work of literary fiction in translation” and Wander’s book was published in Germany in 1971, though not published in English until last year.

I’ve just checked the copyright year on Kadare’s The Siege and it precedes your Wander by a year, being published in 1970. I suppose as long as the author is still alive and the translation was published for the first time in the UK last year then it’s game.

By: John Self

John Self — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 20:07:44 +0000

As does Anne McLean

D’oh! I scanned the names, but clearly not carefully enough.

Just finished reading Fred Wander’s The Seventh Well (tr. Michael Hofmann) and thought it a blinder. A shame the author died a few years ago or it would surely have been a strong contender. Though I wonder if it would have qualified, as the prize must go to a “contemporary work of literary fiction in translation” and Wander’s book was published in Germany in 1971, though not published in English until last year. (The book is published as fiction, though it is apparently a memoir in all but name; but that’s a separate point.)

Also, that stipulation “literary fiction” is odd. How do they define that?

By: Stewart

Stewart — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:18:23 +0000

As does Anne McLean, who translated both The Armies and The Informers.

Also of note is that Ma Jian’s translator, Flora Drew, is his partner.

I’ve edited the list, too, to make mention that David Bellos was translating from the French of Jusuf Vrioni, rather than direct from the Albanian.