The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

What will be on the longlist this year?

I'll take some of my thoughts I posted on the old forum and put them here:

Here are the seven books I've read that I think will be eligible for the prize:

-Sait Faik Abasiyanik's A Useless Man
-Silvina Ocampo's Thus Were Their Faces
-Alejandro Zambra's My Documents
-Pascal Garnier's The A26
-César Aira's The Musical Brain and Other Stories
-Jean Echenoz's The Queen's Caprice
-Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow

Taking on lascosas's format: Should they be longlisted for the BTBA?

Yes
-Sait Faik Abasiyanik's A Useless Man: Beautiful, strange stories from across Abasiyanik's career. I'd never heard of Abasiyanik before, and I just started the first story one night to get a taste. I loved it, loved these soft stories.
-Silvina Ocampo's Thus Were Their Faces: Beautiful, strange stories from across Ocampo's career.
-César Aira's The Musical Brain and Other Stories: Well, beautiful, strange stories from across Aira's career :-).

Maybe
-Georgi Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow: I'm still wrapping my head around this one, but I think I loved it. That said, I think there were some weak areas . . . or maybe it was just me. Regardless, this is a contender in my estimation, but it didn't do as much for me as Ocampo and Aira.

No
-Pascal Garnier's The A26: I've enjoyed Garnier's work, and I think I'm usually okay following his dark path, but this one was a bit much for me.
-Alejandro Zambra's My Documents: Just not a fan of Zambra yet, though I feel it could be me. I'm going to give this collection another shot later in the year.
-Jean Echenoz's The Queen's Caprice: Echenoz sometimes hits me just right, but this collection of slight, usually commissioned, work didn't do much for me. It had a lot of his charm, but I didn't feel any of the fireworks I sometimes feel with him.

Reviewers at my site have said good things about a few translations that seem to be contenders:

-Sofi Oksanen's When the Doves Disappeared
-Alain Farah's Ravenscrag
-Horacio Castellanos Moya's The Dream of My Return
-Anne Garréta’s Sphinx

Later thoughts:

I think we will see Enrique Vila-Matas on the list, but for what book? My pick would be Because She Never Asked, but I can see a strong case for Illogic of Kassell. I was surprised when Dublinesque didn't make the shortlist in 2013, but I can't imagine one of the three New Directions put out this year won't be up in 2016.

YES
Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation (French, Algeria, tr. John Cullen)
Anne Garréta - Sphinx (French, tr. Emma Ramadan)
Georgi Gospodinov – The Physics of Sorrow (Bulgarian, tr. Angela Rodel) – read about half td.
Mikhail Shishkin - Calligraphy Lesson: The Collected Stories (Russian, multiple translators)
Eugene Vodolazkin - Laurus (Russian, tr. Lisa Hayden Espenschade)
Antoine Volodine - Post-Exoticism in Ten Lessons, Lesson Eleven (French, tr. J.T. Mahany)
Oleg Woolf - Bessarabian Stamps: Stories (Russian, tr. Boris Dralyuk)


MAYBE
José Eduardo Agualusa - A General Theory of Oblivion (Portuguese, Angola, tr. Daniel Hahn)
Alisa Ganieva - The Mountain and the Wall (Russian, tr. Carol Apollonio)
Viola di Grado, Hollow Heart (Italian, tr. Anthony Shugaar)
Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding the End of the World (Spanish, Mexico, tr. Lisa Dillman)
Hamid Ismailov - The Underground (Russian, tr. Carol Ermakova)
Patrick Modiano - Paris Nocturne (French, tr. Phoebe Weston-Evans )


NO
a) “BTBA-type” books I didn't particularly like, or which had significant flaws
Naja Marie Aidt - Rock, Paper, Scissors (Danish, tr. K.E. Semmel)
Michel Houellebecq - Submission (French, tr. Lorin Stein)
Valeria Luiselli - The Story of My Teeth (Mexican Spanish, tr. Christina MacSweeney)
Andres Neuman - The Things We Don't Do (Spanish, tr. Nick Caistor & Lorenza García)
Sofi Oksanen - When the Doves Disappeared (Finnish, tr. Lola Rogers)
Oleg Pavlov - Requiem for a Soldier (Russian, tr. Anna Gunin)

b) not, IMO, “BTBA-type” books - some of which I liked
Anne Berest - Sagan, Paris 1954 (French, tr. Heather Lloyd)
Kjell Eriksson - Open Grave (Swedish, tr. Paul Norlen)
Jon Gnarr - The Indian (Icelandic, tr. Lytton Smith) - least likely that others would agree on this categorisation
Pasi Ilmari Jääskeläinen - The Rabbit Back Literature Society (Finnish, tr. Lola Rogers)
Andrus Kivirahk - The Man Who Spoke Snakish (Estonian, tr. Christopher Moseley)
Antoine Laurent - The Red Notebook (French, tr. Jane Aitken & Emily Boyce)
Johanna Sinsalo - The Blood of Angels (Finnish, tr. Lola Rogers)

c) IFFP-type slight novellas [okay, but there will be stronger books than these]
Maxim Biller - Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz (German, tr. Anthea Bell)
Eric Faye - Nagasaki (French, tr. Emily Boyce)
Pia Juul - The Murder of Halland (Danish, tr. Martin Aitken)
Andrei Makine - Brief Loves That Live Forever: A Novel (French, tr. Geoffrey Strachan)
A Yi - A Perfect Crime (Chinese, tr. Anna Holmwood)

For people new to these discussions - who may have read quite a few eligible books without realising it - maybe a link to the Three Per Cent database in the first post?
http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran...
And a short blurb about the prize - for newly translated fiction first published or distributed in the USA during 2015, including works by deceased authors - that just about covers it, doesn't it?

I tried to work out predictions using articles, lists etc posted by judges. But not all of them have posted anything/much. And most of the books that were mentioned more than once were Spanish or Portuguese language. So some of these guesses are based more on general buzz (and a few of my own preferences) than on evidence.

What's the greatest number of titles they've ever longlisted from one language?


Clarice Lispector - The Complete Stories
Georgi Gospodinov - The Physics of Sorrow
Guadalupe Nettel - The Body Where I Was Born
Elena Ferrante - The Story of the Lost Child
Eka Kurniawan - Beauty Is a Wound
Merce Rodoreda - War, So Much War
Horacio Castellanos Moya - The Dream of My Return
Oleg Woolf - Bessarabian Stamps
Mikhail Shishkin - Calligraphy Lesson
Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind
Yoel Hoffman - Moods
Gail Hareven - Lies, First Person
Wolfgang Hilbig - The Sleep of the Righteous
Alisa Ganieva - The Mountain and the Wall
Naja Marie Aidt - Rock Paper Scissors
Yuri Herrera - Signs Preceding the End of the World
Fiston Mwanza Mujila -Tram 83
Toni Sala - The Boys
Peter Buwalda - Bonita Avenue
Kamel Daoud - The Meursault Investigation
Boualem Sansal - Harraga
Ana Kordzaia-Samadashvili, Me, Margarita: Stories
Marianne Fritz - The Weight of Things
Mairtin O Cadhain - The Dirty Dust: Cré na Cille
Bae Suah - Nowhere to Be Found
Alejandro Zambra - My Documents (I've read 2 of the stories & really liked them.)

There's too narrow a spread of languages here, and I'm not sure the list reflects another prediction I want to make - that there will be more female authors longlisted than in any previous year, because two of the judges actively promote feminism in the book world. But I'm burnt out on collating this for now, so going to post it as it is.

If there is a Vila-Matas - and I'm not sure there will be as there are such a lot of good and/or buzzy Spanish language books, and I think this panel will be going for more female and younger authors - I reckon it will be A Brief History of Portable Literature , (based on GR ratings - using them to predict Pamuk for the Booker increased my confidence in them).

And if the Lispector doesn't win, I will be very surprised. Everyone who's read that book adores it; this is a one-horse race.

Interesting re the Lispector.

I fear you may be right and the judges will pick it.

But of those on your list that I have read I would rank Mersault Investigation, The Physics of Sorrow, My Brilliant Friend, Nowhere to the Found all above it, and in addition Son of Man by Yi Mun-yol, Death by Water by Ōe Kenzaburō and Kundera's Festival of Insignificance.

To my personal taste it's longlist but not shortlist material.

From my review:

"Clarice Lispector is clearly a great author and this is an important addition to her works in English, and an impressive achievement by the translator Katrina Dodson and editor, and Lispector's biographer, Benjamin Moser. Dodson's translation is excellent, in particular she preserves the deliberate ruptures in Lispector's Portuguese which other translators have been tempted to smooth over.

But as a book to read, it didn't really work for me. I'm not a fan of short-story collections unless they cohere, and that's precisely what this work doesn't. The stories weren't even meant to be read together: Moser makes a virtue of the fact that bringing Lispector's complete short stories together in one volume (600+ pages and 80+ stories) hasn't been done even in Brazil, but one can't help feel there is a reason for that.

The short stories are also typically less abstract than her better known novels and I suspect would not support her high reputation in their own right."

I don't think I've seen such a level of acclaim for any recently translated literary book since Seiobo (perhaps also Laurus, when people read it in the first place; it hasn't been getting the coverage on blogs) - and people who might not read Krasznahorkai are reading and enjoying the Lispector.

I'm unlikely to read this collection, as I read a bit of one of Lispector's other books and didn't much like it. It evoked feelings similar to reading Jean Rhys, or Virginia Woolf books other than Orlando (personal favourite) - I might not enjoy those, but the authors are popular and respected.

I agree. I think Lispector will win the award ultimately, and I wouldn't be upset by that (I say ignorantly, having read only a handful of the stories . . .).

Last year wasn't my greatest year of reading. I blame the birth of my fourth son, rightly. I have read only a few other eligible books since the first speculative posts I made above.

Yes:
- Henri Duchemin and His Shadows , by Emmanuel Bove
- The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov
- Because She Never Asked , by Enrique Vila-Matas

Maybe:
- Dinner , by Cesar Aira, which I also quite liked, but not nearly as much as I liked The Musical Brain: And Other Stories.

No:
- Pétronille , by Amelie Nothombe, which I quite liked but mostly because I just like seeing what Nothombe is going to do and not because I thought it was particularly prize worthy.
- Arvida , by Samuel Archibald. Just okay.

A few I meant to read but haven't yet, and that I think have a chance:
- The Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma , by Lima Barreto
-Deep Vellum's Sergio Pitol books, which are on the Translation Database, though I wondered if they'd be eligible.

I do think a Vila-Matas book will be on the list, and my own prediction will be Because She Never Asked . . . the bet is on, Antonomasia!

One of the judges, a bookseller, had mentioned Pitol's The Art of Flight as one of his favourite books of 2015, so that's probably got a good chance too if making deductions on that basis. I'd have included it in my predictions if it wasn't for trying to limit the number of Mexican books in the list.
That's also why Story of My Teeth isn't in there. (A lot of literary people seem to love it. I think it's got a good chance although I wasn't so keen, and nor were a bunch of Goodreads members reviewing it for the Tournament of Books.)

A title I forgot to include above - with a different language/nationality - was Thomas Espedal's Against Nature: The Notebooks


Also, congratulations! With four, no wonder there isn't much time for reading.

While M.A. Orthofer acknowledges that many of his favorites do not make it, because he is just one of the several judges, I find his top rated books worth looking at as at least a few of them should make it. I do remember being blown away, though, a few years ago when Where Tigers Are at Home didn't make the longlist since it was one of his favorites that year (and mine too).

From those I've read that are eligible:

YES

The Story of the Lost Child Elena Ferrante, tr Ann Goldstein

it's Ferrante, it's the final and 4th book of the trilogy (sic), what's not to like? Just as the last Lord of the Rings movie won the Oscars to recognise all 3 films, this deserves to win the BTBA or MBI or both

Son of Man Yi Mun-yol tr. Brother Anthony.

이문열 is one of my favourite Korean authors and this was his first full-length novel, the strongest so far of all the Dalkey Archive Library of Korean Literature [and surely one of those deserves to make the list]. An intellectually fascinating theological novel, looking at the development of the nature of the divine in Judeo-Christian thinking, and written as a fictional inner novel within an outward murder mystery.

Mersault-saken The Meursault Investigation Kamel Daoud tr.

The concept originally struck me as dangerously close to fan fiction, but Daoud really adds a new perspective to Camus's novel. so much so that I think going forward the two will be read together. On a standalone basis my favourite book of 2015.

Death by Water Kenzaburo Oe, tr. Deborah Boliver Boehm

Wonderful but wonder if it works as a standalone novel as very much builds on Oe's previous novels, part of his style "I consider my literary work to be a totality of differences within repetition." However, the MBI longlisted it.

The Physics of Sorrow Georgi Gospodinov tr. Angela Rodel

At it's best, the novel reminded me of Kundera at his most playful, with philosophical but humorous musings on many topics, complete with sub-headings. However, if the novel is flawed, it is by comparison to Kundera, or indeed Gospodinov's own model, the Minotaur's labyrinth. Kundera's novels were famously intricately constructed, nary a word out of place, and so to was the labyrinth containing the Minotaur, the work of the master Daedalus. In contrast, at times it feels as if, in the Physics of Sorrow, Gospodinov has simply included anything of relevance (and sometimes irrelevance) that occurs to him, and the novel also wavers between autobiographical fictions and literary philosophy (and typically strongest when the latter).

I Refuse Per Petterson tr. Don Bartlett

After he won the IFFP with the wonderful Out Stealing Horses, English readers have been treated to 6 more novels, but most were actually earlier works in Norwegian. This is a later work that pushes his work forward. The power of I Refuse lies, as always in Petterson's novels, with the understated but powerful prose, as much as with what remains unsaid as what is on the page, but the novel ends wonderfully with an ominous, but unresolved, sense of climax.

Nowhere to Be Found Bae suah tr. Deborah Smith

Short but powerful novella which starts as a seemingly conventional tale of economic hardship, young love and family life but rapidly takes a rather darker turn, more in terms of the psychology of the narrator than the plot. The prose in the novel twists in on itself - indeed it's a novel that rewards an immediate re-read both for the quality of the prose and to spot how references from the early pages are repeated with more significance later.

MAYBE:

Sphinx Anne Garréta tr. Emma Ramandan

I suspect this will make the shortlist, but I feel Emma Ramadan deserves a prize for best translation perhaps, but not for best translated book. Difficult to discuss the book without giving away the Oulipan constraint, which spoils some of the fun, albeit this is "the rare riddle that only makes you think harder after you know the answer.", and I would add the rare case where translation actually adds to the novel, by giving another dimension to the riddle. But as for the novel itself, I found the prose over lurid and the narrator's thoughts dramatised beyond what the story seemed to warrant. Ultimately, I fear I enjoyed thinking about the novel more than reading it

The Complete Stories Clarice Lispector, tr. Benjamin Moser

see above!

Before and During Vladimir Sharov tr. Oliver Ready

I wouldn't be surprised to see this on the long- even short-list. An absurdist alternative-history of the Russian revolution, well written and beautifully translated. But the re-imaginings of history are less powerful when one isn't versed in the detail of the original. . As just one example the significance of a triumvirate of Vladimir Solovyov, John of Kronstadt and Dragomirov playing, in this re-telling, a key role in the Russian revolution was rather lost on me.

A Strangeness in My Mind Orhan Pamuk tr. Ekin Oklap

Much more MBI than BTBA material.

Brief Loves That Live Forever: A Novel Andrei Makine tr. Geoffrey Strachan

I'm a massive fan of Andrei Makine who writes some of the most lyrical prose in modern European literature - but his books do all rather blend into one. I read this when it came out in 2013, and I had to look up my review to remind me of what it was about.

A General Theory of Oblivion José Eduardo Agualusa tr. Daniel Hahn

Like Pamuk felt more of a MBI than a BTBA book.

NO:

The Things We Don't Do Andres Neuman tr. Nick Caistor & Lorenza García

Impressive in parts but the shorter stories work better than the longer ones (anything over 5 pages) and the deliberate lack of a coherent theme ("the extreme freedom of a book of short stories derives from the possibility of starting from zero each time. To demand unity from it is like padlocking the laboratory.") meant that the collection didn't come together as a whole for me.

The Festival of Insignificance Milan Kundera, tr. Aaron Asher

As a stand-alone novel, the Festival of Insignificance could be seen as frustratingly, well, insignificant. Seen as the final, summarising, work from one of the world's finest novelists of the last 50 years, written in a more whimsical tone than his usual note of irony, it is pure delight. But the BTBA is for a novel not a career.

My Struggle: Book Four Knausgaard tr. Don Bartlett

Easily the worst of the series simply because Knausgaard-junior was clearly obnoxious. The more interesting present-day authorial interjections are few and far between, and the head of a self-important 18 year old, obsessed with losing his virginity, isn't really a particularly interesting place to spend 548 pages.

Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes Per Petterson tr. Don Bartlett

Read it back in 2013 when it came out in English. Rather sketchy and only translated after his subsequent books became very famous.

Wind/Pinball: Two Novels Haruki Murakami tr. Ted Goossen

Very early and underdeveloped works - there's a reason why this wasn't commercially published in English until recently (and this is actually a retranslation so shouldn't even be eligible).

Rina Kang Young-Sook tr. Kim Boram

A deliberately disconcerting read. The setting is largely allegorical rather than concrete, the novel is filled with "a superfluity of narrative and ... seemingly unnecessary details and items" , what happens (while described in such detail) is actually largely unimportant, and there is little sense of progress or indeed closure in the plot or development of the characters. All of this is quite intentional from the author but has the drawback of not making the novel particularly readable - one admires the author's intentions more than the resulting execution on the page.

Private Life of Plants Lee Seung-u tr. Louis and Inrae You Vinciguerra

Not as strong as his The Reverse Side of Life. A (dysfunctional) family drama and poetic love story, albeit a very off-beat one, full of the black humour that is a common feature of K-lit (and indeed Korean movies). But it didn't quite cohere for me - the quirky mystery side of the tale sat a little uneasily with the mythical love story, and the plant symbolism was laid on a little too thickly at times.

The Four Books Yan Lianke tr. Carlos Rojas

The rather surreal nature of the story and abstract identity of the characters can serve to undermine the brutal reality of what really happened in China in the period. My other reservation is that the execution of the Four Books concept isn't entirely successful.

Somehow, I completely missed that M.A. Orthofer was not a BTBA judge this year, despite the fact I've looked over the list of judges a few times. I have taken his presence there for granted.

The good news, though, is that he can now engage freely in speculation, as he does in this post. Besides calling out this group (so let's keep the conversations going!), he promises more speculation tomorrow.

I failed to put The Things We Don't Do in my rundown above. Though I enjoyed it, particularly after really disliking Talking to Ourselves, I agree that it shouldn't be on the list. It's a series of exercises, fun ones for sure, but a mixed bag all together.

In M.A. Orthofer's write-up he notes authors with more than one book eligible. I thought I'd list the books here:

Patrick Modiano:
-After the Circus (Yale)
-Paris Nocturne (Yale)
-So You Don't Get Lost in the Neighborhood (HMH)

César Aira:
-Dinner (New Directions)
-The Musical Brain and Other Stories (New Directions)

Emmanuel Bove:
-Henri Duchemin and His Shadows (NYRB Classics)
-Raskolnikov (Red Dust)

Wolfgang Hilbig:
-'I' (Seagull Books)
-Sleep of the Righteous (Two Lines Press)

Eka Kurniawan:
-Man Tiger (Verso)
-Beauty Is a Wound (New Directions)

Andreï Makine:
-Brief Loves That Live Forever (Graywolf)
-Woman Loved (Graywolf)

Máirtín Ó Cadhain:
-Dirty Dust (Yale)
-Key (Dalkey Archive)

Per Petterson:
-Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes (Graywolf)
-I Refuse (Graywolf)

Sergio Pitol:
-Art of Flight (Deep Vellum)
-Journey (Deep Vellum)

Antonio Tabucchi:
-Time Ages in a Hurry (Archipelago)
-Tristano Dies (Archipelago)

Gabrielle Wittkop:
-Exemplary Departures (Wakefield Press)
-Murder Most Serene (Wakefield Press)

Trevor wrote: "In M.A. Orthofer's write-up he notes authors with more than one book eligible. I thought I'd list the books here:


If one were picked it would be Beauty is a Wound for Kurniawan, Brief Lives for Makine, Dirty Dust for Ó Cadhain, and I Refuse for Petterson.

But the odd way the BTBA works (I do find it one of the oddest prizes) means multiple books will count against the author if it the better book is less clear e.g. Hilbig, Modiano and Vila Matis, as no mechanism to cope with split votes.

M.A. Orthofer offers what would have been his list of ten and then fills it out to his choice for the twenty-five, noting that if he were a judge this year he'd have looked more closely at more books.

For discussion purposes, here it is, though I'd recommend looking at his write-up and his reviews.

Top Ten:
-After the Circus by Patrick Modiano (Yale)
-Against Nature: The Notebooks by Tomas Espedal (Seagull Books)
-Beauty Is a Wound by Eka Kurniawan (New Directions)
-Because She Never Asked by Enrique Vila-Matas (New Directions)
-Captivity by Spiró György (Restless Books)
-Death by Water by Ōe Kenzaburō (Grove Press)
-The Mahé Circle by Georges Simenon (Penguin)
-Son of Man by Yi Mun-yol (Dalkey Archive)
-Sphinx by Anne Garréta (Deep Vellum)
-Tram 83 by Fiston Mwanza Mujila (Deep Vellum)

Rounding out the top 25:
-Before and During by Vladimir Sharov (Dedalus)
-The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector (New Directions)
-The Dirty Dust: Cré na Cille by Máirtín Ó Cadhain (Yale)
-A Kingdom of Souls by Daniela Hodrová (Jantar Publishing)
-Kvachi by Mikheil Javakhishvili (Dalkey Archive)
-Laurus by Eugene Vodolazkin (Oneworld Publishing)
-The Meursault Investigation by Kamel Daoud (Other Press)
-Mirages of the Mind by Mushtaq Ahmed Yousufi (New Directions)
-Moods by Yoel Hoffmann (New Directions)
-Nowhere to Be Found by Bae Suah (AmazonCrossing)
-The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov (Open Letter)
-The Roar of Morning by Tip Marugg (Yale)
-Simone by Eduardo Lalo (University of Chicago)
-The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli (Coffee House Press)
-Submission by Michel Houellebecq (FSG)

Okay, with less than a week to go, we should start posting our best guesses as to the longlist, regardless of what we've read. Don't let ignorance prevent you from joining in on this :-) !

I'm about to drive to a meeting a couple of hours away and then back, so I don't have the ability to make my list right now, but I'll be posting one soon.

Hopefully early next week we will get some clues as to the actual longlist.

Okay, here's my own list of 25 that I think could be on the longlist. If we get clues, I will revise it if there's time. I haven't read all of these, so this is not necessarily my personal longlist (though there are some I'm cheering for) but rather a prediction.

-After the Circus, by Patrick Modiano
-Art of Flight, by Sergio Pitol
-Against Nature, by Tomas Espedal
-Beauty Is a Wound, by Eka Kurniawan
-Because She Never Asked, by Enrique Vila-Matas

-The Complete Stories of Clarice Lispector
-Dilemma, by Joris-Karl Huysmans
-Disagreeable Tales, by Leon Bloy
-Henri Duchemin and His Shadows, by Emmanuel Bove
-'I', by Wolfgan Hilbig

-Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz, by Maxim Biller
-Life Embitters, by Josep Pla
-The Mersault Investigation, by Kamel Daoud
-The Musical Brain, by Cesar Aira
-The Physics of Sorrow, by Georgi Gospodinov

-Rock, Paper, Scissors, by Naja Marie Aidt
-Sad End of Policarpo Quaresma, by Lima Barreto
-Simone, by Eduardo Lalo
-Son of Man, by Yi Mun-yol
-Sphinx, by Anne Garreta

-The Story of the Lost Child, by Elena Ferrante
-Story of My Teeth, by Valeria Luiselli
-The Walnut Mansion, by Miljenko Jergovic
-The Weight of Things, by Marianne Fritz
-Woman Loved, by Andrei Makine

Cheers!

Inside the Head of Bruno Schulz contains 2 stories by Schulz from Street of Crocodiles, which make up maybe 1/4 of the book, so it may not be eligible.
Also, the main novella IMO doesn't look so great beside the Schulz stories.

I heard it somewhere that a handful of the Lispector stories are retranslations, so it's not impossible that might count it out, which would be a bit of an upset. Though it's still got the PEN Translation Prize.

Since both are listed on the translation database as eligible titles (unlike Ocampo's stories, which I'd love to see nominated), I put them, though that isn't the end all be all. M. A. Orthofer noted a few on the list that shouldn't be there because they've already been out.

Not much to add to the lists above since my picks would be a combination of books I've read - see my Yes/Maybe/No ratings - and ones from other peoples' lists.

Guess my only - and controversial - hope is that the judges have the courage not to shortlist the Lispector.

A few guesses from me :)

My Documents, Sphinx, The Meursault Investigation, Signs Preceding the End of the World, Rock, Paper, Scissors, The Things We Don't Do, The Story of the Lost Child, Beauty is a Wound, War, So Much War, Tram 83, Nowhere to be Found, Death by Water (eligible?), the Lispector stories, The Four Books

That's fourteen from me, of which I've read all but two (the Herrera and Lispector). Six women there, which is a healthy proportion ;)

I just started Gabrielle Wittkop's Murder Most Serene, and the first segment is fantastic. I have almost the entire novella to go, but wanted to throw out a bit of a last second mention. If it isn't on the list, I will talk about it elsewhere, whether it lives up to the first bit or not.

Of those I've read: Story of the Lost Child, Mersault Investigation, Death by Water, Nowhere to be Found, Physics of Sorrow, Son of Man, I Refuse, Complete Stories (Lispector), Sphinx, Before and During, Brief Loves That Live Forever, A General Theory of Oblivion

and others:
Signs Preceding the End of the World, Laurus, Beauty is a Wound, The Dirty Dust, Because She Never Asked, Story of my Teeth, The Sleep of the Righteous, Calligraphy Lessons, My Documents, Post Exoticism in Ten Lessons, The Musical Brain, Thus Were their Faces

Not long before the list is announced! When that happens, I will spend some time in here setting up the threads. Just sit tight and comment in the "general discussion" thread until the individual threads pop up -- no need to set up a thread yourself at this point, though I'd love suggestions if a thread you want is not there.

No real mention of Mushtaq Ahmad Yousefi's "Mirages of the Mind" (besides a single 'maybe'). For me it is a certainty to make the list. We will know in about 24 hours time anyway.

I haven't read it yet, Tony, but I'm thrilled to hear your enthusiasm for it!

Being smug for a moment, 12 right! (13 if I'd remembered Sphinx, which I had thought was on my list)

Nice! I got only seven, not counting my late entry of Murder Most Serene!

Eleven correct guesses from fourteen suggestions - feeling very smug ;)

Now that's a pretty impressive ratio.

Antonomasia wrote: "Now that's a pretty impressive ratio."

Very happy with that :) I've read twelve out of twenty-five too, so if I were planning to read them all (which I'm not...), that would be a very useful start ;)

12 right for me and I've read 11.

Of those I'd read and expected to be on the list, 8 of the 12 made it: Story of the Lost Child, Mersault Investigation, Nowhere to be Found, Physics of Sorrow, I Refuse, Complete Stories (Lispector), Sphinx, A General Theory of Oblivion.

Death by Water, Son of Man, Before and During and Brief Lives that Live Forever missed out from my personal longlist.

Three more I read that made it - Tram 83 (which I read after my list) and Four Books and the Neuman short story collection (which were "Noes" for me).

I didn't do such a good job of predicting those I hadn't read - 4 from 13. But the only ones I'm genuinely surprised not to see on the list are Laurus and The Dirty Dust.

Sleep of the Righteous and Signs Preceding the End of the World will be top of my to-read list, suspect I won't get to any others until the shortlist / people's views on here persuade me.

Several on the list I know nothing about - but that's part of the fun.