Kadare and Yehoshua longlisted for Foreign Fiction Prize

Man Booker International authors make longlist

27 February 2009

Ismail Kadare, winner of the Man Booker Prize International 2005, and A.B. Yehoshua, a contender in 2005, have both been longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2009.

Arts Council England announced the longlist of 16 titles today (25 February 2009), chosen out of 126 contenders.

The £10,000 prize celebrates a work of fiction by a living author, which has been translated into English and published in the UK in the last year.

Antonia Byatt, director of literature strategy at ACE, said: "This year's longlist is a fantastic demonstration of the rich range and quality of fiction in translation being published in Britain today.

"It's wonderful to see so many languages represented from all over the world: a feast for readers and a real challenge for the judges in making a decision!"

A shortlist of six will be revealed on 1st April, and the overall winner will be announced on 14th May at Tate Britain. The winning author and translator will receive £5,000 each, plus a limited edition magnum of Champagne Taittinger.

This year's judges included novelist and journalist Linda Grant (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2008), poet, editor and translator Fiona Sampson, founder-editor of the ReadySteadyBook site Mark Thwaite, Kate Griffin of ACE and Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of The Independent. They read works originally written in 25 languages.

Voyage of discovery: The long-list for the 2009 prize

Sasa Stanisic

'How the Soldier Repairs the Gramophone' (translated from the German by Anthea Bell; Weidenfeld & Nicolson)

Alexander Ahndoril

'The Director' (Swedish; Sarah Death; Portobello)

Celine Curiol

'Voiceover' (French; Sam Richard; Faber & Faber)

Gyorgy Dragoman

'The White King' (Hungarian; Paul Olchvary; Doubleday)

Thomas Glavinic, 'Night Work' (German; John Brownjohn; Canongate)

Linn Ullmann

'A Blessed Child' (Norwegian; Sarah Death; Picador)