Erpenbeck/Bernofsky, Kehlmann/Brown Janeway Shortlisted, Brambach/Kinsky, Showghi/Waldrop Longlisted

Lists! The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist is out, and features Jenny Erpenbeck's The End of Days, translated by Susan Bernofsky, and Daniel Kehlmann's F, translated by Carol Brown Janeway. Guess which one's my favourite?

And also the American sort of equivalent, the Best Translated Book Award, has announced its longlists. No German writing on the fiction list, but two titles on the poetry longlist (if anyone runs a blog called Love French Books, they'll be really pleased about both lists, though): Collected Poems by Rainer Brambach, translated by Esther Kinsky, and End of the City Map by Farhad Showghi, translated by Rosmarie Waldrop.

Congratulations to all the nominees!

Four American Things

Here are four top things from America:

There's my lovely friend George Carroll talking to Chad Post (also lovely) in the Three Percent podcast - about Seagull Books, Mo Yan, Inka Parei, and how cool they both are.

There's my other lovely friend Shelley Frisch on translation at Words Without Borders' Translator Relay.

There's Daniel Kehlmann, whom I don't know personally, on his translator Carol Brown Janeway, whom I don't know either, at Publishing Perspectives.

And there's something top from Germany about something not so top about America, and that is a story by Francis Nenik to mark Bradley Manning's 1000 days in prison. The story is under a creative commons license, and I'm told that translations are definitely desired. In case anyone was looking for something excellent to translate.

Friedrich Ulfers Prize to Carol Brown Janeway

As the German Book Office has announced, the first ever Friedrich Ulfers Prize is to be awarded to translator and editor Carol Brown Janeway. The award "was created to award outstanding individuals who have championed the advancement of German-language literature in the United States." 

Ms. Janeway gets $5,000 and a sparkly trophy, handed over by Daniel Kehlmann, who she introduced to American readers in her translation. Other authors she's translated include Bernhard Schlink, Ferdinand von Schirach, Elke Schmitter, Benjamin Lebert and Thomas Bernhard. Congratulations!

Erpenbeck, Kehlmann, Schlink Longlisted

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is the largest and most international prize of its kind. Libraries from all round the world nominate books written in any language (but available in English) to form a whopping great longlist. The nominees for 2012 are all books first published in English during 2010. And this year's longlist includes three German books: Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation, trans. Susan Bernofsky,  Daniel Kehlmann's Fame, trans. Carol Brown Janeway, and Bernhard Schlink's The Weekend, trans. Shaun Whiteside.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that one or other of them makes it onto April's shortlist of ten. Certainly the lovely Visitation has been shortlisted for all sorts of things - wouldn't it be nice if it won something?

Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

No surprises here then, at least not for German readers. The shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is out, accompanied by a rousing article by Boyd Tonkin, who I think has done more for translated literature in the British public eye than almost anyone else. The prize celebrates writing in translation and the people behind it, with the 10,000 pounds prize money shared between the authors and translators. And of course stickers on the books.

Tonkin writes:

Yes, the British book trade should translate more; yes, translators deserve a better deal; and yes, fiction from outside the Anglosphere can meet too much of the sort of prejudice that would outrage young Castorp {a character in another shortlisted book- kjd}. Still, a little celebration might be in order too. The dedicated translators and publishers (often from independent firms) who bring the best of the world's fiction to these shores have helped contribute to another golden age of cross-cultural interchange.

And guess what, Daniel Kehlmann's Measuring the World is on the shortlist. Now I have to say right away that I haven't read it. Unlike everyone else in the German-speaking world, it would seem. It just didn't really appeal to me I'm afraid. But I did attend a seminar at the VdÜ summer get-together, in which we looked at Carol Brown Janeway's translation. Strangely enough, the German natives liked it and the English-speakers didn't. I felt it was rather dull, replacing Kehlmann's colourful verbs with things like "put" and "do". But there you go. The prize isn't about comparing the original and the translation, and the book seems to have enough merits of its own to leap this slight hurdle nonetheless. I wish Kehlmann and Janeway luck.