The official Man Booker International Prize shortlist 2016

The official shortlist for the Man Booker International Prize was announced on Thursday:

• A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portugese by Daniel Hahn (Harvill Secker)
• The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Europa Editions)
• The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith (Portobello Books)
• The Four Books by Yan Lianke, translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas (Chatto & Windus)
• A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk, translated from the Turkish by Ekin Oklap (Faber & Faber)
• A Whole Life by Rbert Seethaler, translated from the German by Charlotte Collins (Picador)

This list has three titles in common with our shadow shortlist, but they’re quite different selections overall. (If I’m honest, I prefer ours). It never ceases to surprise me how two groups of people can read the same books and reach such divergent conclusions.

(If you’re wondering, my personal shortlist would have been different again: Mend the Living, The Vegetarian, Tram 83, Ladivine, White Hunger, and The Four Books.)

The winner of the Man Booker International Prize will be announced on the evening of 16 May, and we’ll reveal our shadow winner shortly before them. Right now, I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess at what either winner will be; but I am looking forward to finding out.