The official shortlist for this year’s Man Booker International Prize was announced on Tuesday:
- Celestial Bodies by Jokha Alharthi, tr. Marilyn Booth (Sandstone Press).
- The Years by Annie Ernaux, tr. Alison L. Strayer (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
- The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann, tr. Jen Calleja (Serpent’s Tail).
- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, tr. Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
- The Shape of the Ruins by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, tr. Anne McLean (MacLehose Press).
- The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zeran, tr. Sophie Hughes (And Other Stories).
Generally speaking, I think this is a good shortlist. I do have my reservations: I’m not keen on The Pine Islands, and this list leaves off my favourite book from the longlist (The Faculty of Dreams, which I’ll be reviewing next). But you can’t go far wrong with the rest of the shortlist.
We’ll be announcing the shadow panel’s shortlist next Thursday, 18 April. It’s not finalised yet, but it should make an interesting point of comparison with the official shortlist.
Read my other posts on the 2019 Man Booker International Prize here.
11th April 2019 at 4:58 pm
It must be awards season – I seem to get email alerts nearly every day now about a prize short/longlist. I think I’ll wait to see what the shadow jury selects and pick one of those to read.
9th May 2019 at 8:12 pm
As it turned out, we mostly chose the same! Have any caught your eye?