Shortlists

After the obligatory one-day sulk - and because it's the school holidays - here is the news:

Inka Parei's Shadow-Boxing Woman didn't make the Best Translated Book Award fiction shortlist, and nor did any other German titles. One of the ten is by a woman (but then the longlist was similarly skewed). But two books of translated German poetry are on the poetry shortlist (see link above), to wit: engulf – enkindle by Anja Utler, translated by Kurt Beals (who I just met, he's staying in Berlin for a while), and False Friends by Uljana Wolf, translated by Susan Bernofsky.

So congratulations ladies and gent and know that my fingers are crossed for you all.

On the prose front, the shortlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize has also been announced, and includes Alice by Judith Hermann, translated from the German by Margot Bettauer Dembo. Hooray!