Congratulations to the writer and translator - commiserations (and respect) to the rest of the people on the longlist :)
*****
And that's it for another year... almost! Before I wrap up my IFFP commitments for 2013 though, I thought I'd just share a few thoughts on the winner and the whole IFFP process. Before last night's ceremony, I must admit that I was a little nervous. I wasn't overly impressed with some of the decision made in 2012, and I was fully prepared to be disappointed again...
However, while I certainly wasn't expecting Bakker's name to be the one inside the envelope, I was very glad to hear that The Detour had won. It's a great novel, well-written and thought-provoking, and it's the kind of book I personally believe should be rewarded in this type of competetion. Like many, many people, I was also glad that Andrés Neuman's Traveller of the Century was singled out for special praise; it's a book I (and a couple of other Shadow Panellists) have been championing for a good while now :)
So why was I so worried? Well, after a couple of years of shadowing the IFFP, I'm still not completely sure what the prize is about. Is it purely a search for the best work of literary fiction in translation, or is it more of a campaign to promote works originally written in languages other than English? The answer, of course, is probably a bit of both. I'm not sure whether the judges are subject to any kind of guiding 'advice' from Booktrust, but they must surely feel a responsibility beyond the simple act of filtering the gems from the dross.
I also wonder whether there is a focus on the kind of book the organisers would like to promote. Was the omission of László Krasznahorkai's Satantango from the shortlist (and the inclusion of Chris Barnard's Bundu) a sign that more accessible, readable fiction was preferred to difficult literary texts? It did seem odd that the American IFFP equivalent, the Best Translated Book Award, chose Satantango as best in class when it couldn't make the top six here...
Perhaps, however, the longlist reflects the state of translated fiction in general (including the prevalence of works set during the Second World War...). Does the lack of women on the list indicate that there weren't enough quality works by female writers translated last year? Or were they simply not up to scratch? Was it really a poor year for Asia, Africa and the Middle East, or were there simply not enough submissions from these regions?
All of which leads inevitably to another question - what exactly was submitted for the prize in the first place? There's a lack of transparency in the process which makes it hard to determine exactly how representative the longlist really was (I, for one, would love to see what the publishers thought might be of interest to the panel). This is not a criticism of the way Booktrust run things - just a gentle nudge to help them make things even better next year ;)
As for next year, while it might be a little early still, it's worth thinking about what could be on the longlist in 2014. While Japanese literature was absent this year, Ryu Murakami's From the Fatherland With Love (Pushkin Press) is a chance for next year, and Portobello Books is repackaging Hiromi Kawakami's The Briefcase as Strange Weather in Tokyo for a UK release later in 2013. While we wait for Mikhail Shishkin's BTBA-shortlisted novel Maidenhair to appear in the UK, his British debut from MacLehose Press, The Light and The Dark (which I'll be reviewing in a few days time!), may be one to watch. A couple of Arabic-language works I've read this year (Hassan Blasim's collection from Comma Press, The Iraqi Christ, and Elias Khoury's excellent White Masks, again from MacLehose) could also be in the mix, and I suppose you can't discount the next instalment in Karl Ove Knausgaard's cathartic six-pack ;) My one to watch though is Birgit Vanderbeke's The Mussel Feast - Peirene have been longlisted three years in a row, and this is the one which will finally make it to the shortlist. Remember where you heard it first (unless I'm wrong, in which case please forget all about it...).
If you want to relive the magic of this year's IFFP, you can find links to all my reviews of the longlisted books on my 2013 Challenge Page, and Lisa and Stu have dedicated pages with links to reviews from the whole Shadow Panel. And speaking of the Shadow Panel...
...thanks are due to Lisa, Gary, Mark and chairman Stu for their company and support on the campaign. It's been a long, arduous journey, one that has taken us all over the world (without leaving our armchairs), but it's been one I've thoroughly enjoyed. I hope all my readers have enjoyed the trip too, and perhaps you'll think about joining us next time around. I'll certainly be back to do it all again in 2014 :)
