Long of the Booker International Book: 6 books to talk about

A satire of expatriate life in Trendy Berlin, a story of an antique book trader blocked in a time cycle and an imaginary reinterpretation of a tragedy of migrant boats in the sleeve channel, are among the six titles that will compete for this year’s International Booker Prize, the organizers of the prize announced on Tuesday.

Perhaps the highest title of profile on the list for the prize for fiction translated into English is “On the calculation of the volume: 1“Speaking of a library that pours over the same day the same day.

Balle’s novel, translated by Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, was a candidate For the National Book Award last year for translated literature and many critics have talked about it since its release last year. Hilary Leichter, In a review for the New York TimesHe said that in the hands of Balle “the narrative of the temporal environment takes on new and extraordinary proportions”.

The six selected titles – four of which are lower than 200 pages – also include “Vincenzo Latronica”Perfection“Translated by the Italian by Sophie Hughes, on a couple of expatriates who live in a neighborhood of Berlin in fashion and struggle to engage with life outside of their bubble. Ryan Ruby, In a review For the Times, he said that “with ethnographic precision, Tassonomic Latronica the tastes, attitudes, vanities and blind points of the people that we now call digital nomads”.

Founded in 2005, the International Booker Prize was originally assigned to an author for the work of their life, but since 2016 he has been assigned to a single book translated into English and published in Great Britain or in Ireland. It is provided with a cash prizes of $ 50,000, about $ 64,000, that the author and the winning translator share the same way.

Last year award went to “Kairos” by Jenny Erpenbeck Translated by Michael Hofmann. The previous winners included “Time Shelter” by Georgi Gospodinov AND “Han Kang’s vegetarian. “

Max Porter, author and president of this year’s jury, said in a press release that the “mental expansion” list was a vehicle for pressing and surprising conversations on humanity “. The books “do not close the debate, they generate it”, he added.

Together with the novels of Balle and Latronica, the other selected titles are:

• “Ane Serre’s Leopard-Skin Hat”, translated by the Frenchman by Mark Hutchinson: a novel about the relationship between an unnamed narrator and an anguished friend. Greenhouse He told the Booker Prize website Who wrote the novel in a few months after his sister’s suicide. “I wanted to create a memorial for her, one who was as beautiful as possible,” said Serre.

The judges will announce a winner on May 20 during a Tate Modern ceremony in London.