The International Booker Prize longlist for 2021 was announced on Tuesday, and here it is:

  • I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping (Yale University Press).
  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Moschovakis (Pushkin Press).
  • The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili, translated from Georgian by Elizabeth Heighway (Peirene Press).
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Granta Books).
  • When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press).
  • The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, translated from Gikuyu by the author (Harvill Secker).
  • The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (Lolli Editions).
  • Summer Brother by Jaap Robben, translated from Dutch by David Doherty (World Editions).
  • An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, translated from German by Jackie Smith (MacLehose Press).
  • Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
  • In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale (Fitzcarraldo Editions).
  • Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichy, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories).
  • The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti (Picador).

We’ll have an official response from the Shadow Panel in a few days. For now, I’ve linked above to the books I’ve already reviewed, and will add more as I read my way through the list. This is always something I look forward to, and I’m interested to see what I’ll find this year.