The longlist for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize has been announced, with the five judges (Chair Nick Barley, Daniel Hahn, Elif Shafak, Chika Unigwe and Helen Mort) serving up thirteen novels.
Initial thoughts are the usual grumblings, there are only three women writers on the list, again under represented as they are in publication, there are no books from Spain on the list for the second year running, and the list contains a large number of “tomes”, Clemens Meyers’ “Bricks and Mortar” weighing in at 653 pages and the other Fitzcarraldo Editions nominee “Compass” by Mathias Énard coming in at 480 pages!!!
The shadow jury will have their work cut out to get through the thirteen titles before the shortlist announcement on 20 April with the winner being announced on 14 June 2017.
Here are the titles on the 2017 longlist (links to other Shadow Jury member’s reviews are listed with links to my reviews via the titles themselves);
“Compass” by Mathias Énard (France), translated by Charlotte Mandell and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
“Swallowing Mercury” by Wioletta Greg (Poland), translated by Eliza Marciniak and published by Portobello Books
“A Horse Walks Into a Bar” by David Grossman (Israel), translated by Jessica Cohen and published by Jonathan Cape
“War and Turpentine” by Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), translated by David McKay and published by Harvill Secker
“The Unseen” by Roy Jacobsen (Norway), translated by Don Bartlett and published by MacLehose Press
“The Traitor’s Niche” by Ismail Kadare (Albania), translated by John Hodgson and published by Harvill Secker
A Little Blog of Books reviews
“Fish Have No Feet” by Jón Kalman Stefánsson (Iceland), translated by Philip Roughton and published by MacLehose Press
“The Explosion Chronicles” by Yan Lianke (China), translated by Carlos Rojas and published by Chatto & Windus
“Black Moses” by Alain Mabanckou (France), translated by Helen Stevenson and published by Serpent’s Tail
“Bricks and Mortar” by Clemens Meyer (Germany), translated by Katy Derbyshire and published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
A Little Blog of Books reviews
“Mirror, Shoulder, Signal” by Dorthe Nors (Denmark), translated by Misha Hoekstra and published by Pushkin Press
“Judas” by Amos Oz (Israel), translated by Nicholas de Lange and published by Chatto & Windus
“Fever Dream” by Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), translated by Megan McDowell and published by Oneworld
Messenger's Booker (and more) 
Actually, I had a little of my ‘guilt’ assuaged by the gender debate… although I don’t consciously read to any agenda, I’ve been tracking the gender of the books I read for a while now and have a sub-category for translated fiction. Leaving out books from before the 20th century (because nearly all the classics are written by men (Balzac, Zola, the Russians etc) so that would distort the figures), my stats are currently running at 54 female, 134 male. That’s almost 30%, up from 20% or so when I started tracking it, and it’s slightly better than the 26% female-authored translated books published i.e. available to us. (Which one of the judges referred to in the Guardian article, when commenting on the gender disparity).
FWIW I would have liked to have seen The Winterlings on the list, that would have given them a rep from Spain too! https://anzlitlovers.com/2016/10/26/the-winterlings-by-cristina-sanchez-andrade-translated-by-samuel-rutter/
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If you’re aiming to read all of these by April 20 you do indeed have a task ahead. Not much time left for anything but reading I would imagine
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Exactly & I work full time as well as being the organiser & participant of a major fundraising event that takes two weeks to complete!!! No sleep for me
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Oh dear, I can see large truck loads of caffeine being delivered to your home over the next few weeks in that case
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I think it looks like an interesting list though slightly daunting at this point. It does seem very Eurocentric for an international prize though.
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Thank you for all the links, Tony! Love reading these books (or as many as we can) together.
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Not a problem – lying in bed all day with my illness is not that inspiring, I need to do something (although I’ve been told not to!!!) – I’ll do my best to keep it updated throughout.
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