One of Ukraine’s best known writers, a novelist back from the “dead”, and an author who dictated her book are among the long listed writers for this year’s International Booker prize.
The list, said French Moroccan novelist and chair of judges Leïla Slimani, “celebrates the variety and diversity of literary production today”.
The £50,000 prize is awarded annually for a novel or short story collection written originally in any language, translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. The prize money is split equally between the author and translator of the winning book.
Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches (And Other Stories)
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Europa)
The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox (World Editions)
Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose)
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel (Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Verso)
Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov, translated by Reuben Woolley (MacLehose)
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker (Fitzcarraldo)
While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer, translated by Katy Derbyshire (Fitzcarraldo)
Pyre by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Pushkin)
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey (Fitzcarraldo)
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding by Amanda Svensson, translated by Nichola Smalley (Scribe)
Ninth Building by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang (Honford Star)
This year’s 13-strong longlist contains three languages – Bulgarian, Catalan and Tamil – that have never appeared before. In total, the list comprises 11 languages with three writers – GauZ’, Zou Jingzhi and Amanda Svensson – whose work has appeared in English for the first time.
Maryse Condé, who is the oldest writer ever to be longlisted for the prize at the age of 89, dictated her nominated novel The Gospel According to the New World to her husband and translator Richard Philcox, as she has a degenerative neurological disorder that makes it difficult to speak and see. Condé and Philcox are the first wife-and-husband author-translator team to be longlisted for the award.
Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov, who writes fiction in Russian, is shortlisted for Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, out at the end of April, translated by Reuben Woolley. Meanwhile Perumal Murugan, who declared himself “dead” as a writer after protests against his work, is longlisted for Pyre, translated from Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan.
Joining Slimani on this year’s judging panel are Uilleam Blacker, one of Britain’s leading literary translators from Ukrainian; Tan Twan Eng, the Booker-shortlisted Malaysian novelist; Parul Sehgal, staff writer and critic at the New Yorker; and Frederick Studemann, literary editor of the Financial Times.
They chose the longlist from 134 books published between 1 May 2022 and 30 April 2023 and submitted to the prize by publishers.
Slimani said the list was a “celebration of the power of language and of authors who wanted to push formal inquiry as far as possible”.
“We wanted to celebrate literary ambition, panache, originality and, of course, through this, the talent of translators who have been able to convey all of this with great skill,” she added.
Eva Baltasar’s Boulder, translated by Julia Sanches from Catalan, is about a woman nicknamed Boulder by Samsa, a woman she meets on a merchant ship and who she falls in love with.
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, who is also a film-maker, is translated from Korean by Chi-Young Kim. It is a collection of stories about the lives of linked characters in a remote village in South Korea.
Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from Ivoirian by Frank Wynne, is about two generations of Ivoirians trying to make their way as undocumented workers in Paris. Reviewing the book in the Guardian, John Self described it as “inventive and very funny”.
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel, is about the opening of a “clinic for the past” that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. Patrick McGuinness in the Guardian said it “could not be more timely”.
Vigdis Hjorth’s Norwegian novel about a mother and child Is Mother Dead is translated by Charlotte Barslund. Susie Mesure in the Guardian said the novel was: “an absorbing study of inner turmoil that is unexpectedly gripping”.
The Birthday Party by Laurent Mauvignier is translated from French by Daniel Levin Becker and is set over the course of a day in an isolated hamlet in France. In the Guardian Anthony Cummins said “its remorseless narrative logic … has us reading from behind our hands, as we watch its ensemble cast stumble into catastrophe”.
While We Were Dreaming by Clemens Meyer is translated by Katy Derbyshire from German. The pair were previously shortlisted in 2017 for Meyer’s novel Bricks and Mortar. Originally published in 2007, While We Were Dreaming, about three friends growing up in Leipzig at the time of reunification, is Meyer’s debut novel.
Guadalupe Nettel’s Still Born is translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey, and is about two women grappling with whether or not to have children.
Amanda Svensson, who is the Swedish translator of Ali Smith’s novels, is longlisted for A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, a family saga about triplets, translated by Nichola Smalley from Swedish.
The list is completed by Ninth Building by Zou Jingzhi, translated by Jeremy Tiang from Chinese. It is a collection of vignettes drawn from the author’s experience growing up during the Cultural Revolution.
Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the International Booker prize, said the longlist “proves that reading has no borders”.
The shortlist of six books will be announced at London Book Fair on 18 April, with the winner announced at a London ceremony on 23 May.
Last year’s winner was Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell. It was the first novel translated from Hindi to win the prize.
To explore all the books on the longlist for the International Booker prize 2023 visit guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
• This article was amended on 14 March 2023. An earlier version misspelt Reuben Woolley’s and Julia Sanches’s names and stated the wrong age for Maryse Condé.
