International Booker Prize Longlist 2020: Indie publishers dominate race for the year's best fiction title

The longlist for this year’s International Booker Prize was announced on 27 February. Thirteen novels are vying for the prestigious £50,000 award, meant to be split equally between the author and translator. The shortlist, which will be announced on 2 April, will fetch the writers and translators a cash prize of £1,000. As noted by The Guardian, this year’s longlist is dominated by small publishing houses, racing past press giants. [caption id=“attachment_8098131” align=“alignnone” width=“1200”] The Discomfort of Evening; The Eighth Life.[/caption] Longlist for the International Booker Prize 2020: Willem Anker (South Africa), translated by Michiel Heyns — Red Dog (Pushkin Press) Shokoofeh Azar (Iran) — The Enlightenment of The Greengage Tree (Europa Editions) Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (Argentina), translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh — The Adventures of China Iron (Charco Press) Jon Fosse (Norway), translated by Damion Searls — The Other Name: Septology I – II (Fitzcarraldo Editions) Nino Haratischvili (Georgia), translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin — The Eighth Life (Scribe UK) Michel Houellebecq (France), translated by Shaun Whiteside — Serotonin (William Heinemann) Daniel Kehlmann (Germany), translated by Ross Benjamin — Tyll (Quercus) Fernanda Melchor (Mexico), translated by Sophie Hughes — Hurricane Season (Fitzcarraldo Editions) Yoko Ogawa (Japan), translated by Stephen Snyder — The Memory Police (Harvill Secker) Emmanuelle Pagano (France), translated by Sophie Lewis and Jennifer Higgins — Faces on the Tip of My Tongue (Peirene Press) Samanta Schweblin (Argentina), translated by Megan McDowell — Little Eyes (Oneworld) Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Netherlands), translated by Michele Hutchison — The Discomfort of Evening (Faber & Faber) Enrique Vila-Matas (Spain), translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes — Mac and His Problem (Harvill Secker) Every year, the International Booker Prize is awarded to a book translated into English and published either in the United Kingdom or Ireland. The judges considered a total of 124 books before announcing the 13-book long list. The longlist was selected by a panel of five judges, chaired by Ted Hodgkinson, head of literature and spoken word at Southbank Centre. The panel also comprises Lucie Campos, director of the Villa Gillet; Man Booker International Prize-winning translator and writer Jennifer Croft; LA Times Book Prize for Fiction-winning author Valeria Luiselli and writer, poet and musician Jeet Thayil, whose novel Narcopolis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012.