In case any of you missed the papers or the news yesterday, the short list for the International Impac Dublin Literary Award was published. While, the judges have to be congratulated on working through 162 books in the last five months, I am saddened to see no work of translation included. We have lost Brodeck's Report [Claudel], Red April [Roncagliolo] and Your Face Tomorrow [Marias], all superior literary works, all demonstrative of the extraordinary literary talent and challenging work being produced in the non-English speaking world.
For better or worse, the ten titles in the short list are: Galore [Michael Crummey], The Lacuna [Barbara Kingsolver], The Vagrants [Yiyun Li], Ransom [David Malouf], Let the Great World Spin [Colum McCann], Little Bird of Heaven [Joyce Carol Oates], Jasper Jones [Craig Silvey], Brooklyn [Colm Toibin], Love and Summer [William Trevor] and After the Fire, a Still Small Voice [Evie Wyld].
It might make a useful reading list for the coming weeks though I think you can all safely skip Joyce Carol Oates!
I completely agree and wrote a piece on the doorstep of your mortal enemy, the Guardian books site, expressing the same.
ReplyDeleteThanks John! How brave are you! Nice to know I'm not fighting a lone battle.
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