The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

We are two thirds through the year, so it's time to start the speculation for the 2021 Best Translated Book Award.

As a reminder, books eligible for the 2021 Best Translated Book Award are those published in the United States during the calendar year 2020. These must be first-time translations, so no new translations are eligible.

Short-story collections are allowed and the author and translator (unlike the International Booker) need not be alive.

Rather neatly Publishers Weekly hosts a translation database: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/t...

so if one checks the '2020' Publication Year box and Genre as 'Fiction' then that should be the eligible books.

From International Booker featured books, the following are eligible for the 2020 BTBA (may be some others I've missed):

Hurricane Season
The Other Name: Septology I-II
Engagement of the Greengage Tree
Tyll
Little Eyes
Discomfort of Evening
Eighth Life

2019 eligible: Serotonin, The Memory Police, Mac's Problem
Can't find (not published in US?): Red Dog, Faces on the Tip of My Tongue, The Adventures of China Iron

A personal bugbear of mine is the lack of any Korean fiction on the list each year.

There are 8 eligible this year so far - I've read 7:

b, Book, and Me
Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
The Only Child
The Law of Lines
Bluebeard's First Wife
Seven Years of Darkness
The Disaster Tourist
Friend: A Novel from North Korea

Bluebeard's First Wife would be my pick for the list

And as an early tip to win - a book discussed elsewhere on threads but which I've yet to read - Natural History

I have been touting Natural History and just wanted to note that not all will love this book, just like not everyone had Paul's enthusiasm for The Discomfort of Evening. I liked it and thought members in this group would also, because of the novel's academic aspects and its challenges to interpretation. I was particularly trying to avoid spoiling the novel, not because of plot, but because I thought a fresh reading without prior knowledge would benefit the reader.

I have, since reading the novel, been reading reviews of the book and interviews with the author, and have been amused at the many and varied comparisons to other authors that have been suggested, seeing them all apt even if they are not fully encompassing. I made a vague nod to Josipovici thinking of Cementary at Barnes, since it was atmospheric, mysterious, and thought provoking.

Below is a quote from Fonseca in an interview from The LA Review of Books that helps define what I liked about the book, its capacity for stimulating memory and thought, without spoiling.

I like Don DeLillo's phrase: "[W]riting is a concentrated form of thinking." In my novels, I think in ways that the rigor of an academic article doesn't allow. I free myself from the fear of contradiction and
from the fear of metaphor. One thinks through fictions, through metaphors, through language. That might be why I am attracted to those thinkers who are also writers: Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag, Maggie Nelson, Michael Taussig, Robert Piglia. <\i>

He's also mentoined Sebald and of course Thomas Bernhard, as well as Faulkner, Machado de Assis, Borges, DeLillo, Lispector, Perec, Sarraute and Calvino

Have to say his influences/favourite writers are an impressive bunch. I'm planning read Colonel Lagrimas next given the maths link

I will get to Colonel Lagrimas a little later this year.

The new one seems to be getting better reviews - a lot for that seemed more admiring of the ambition than the execution

Miljenko Jergovic's "Kin" caught my eye in the database. I've got it in original Croatian, it's huge, and if it's anything like other Jergovićs I've read it must be excellent.

Looks like this one isn't actually out till May 2021 despite the database saying 2020 so for the 2022 prize. (and looks like 500 pages in English but that may be a placeholder)

Any already in English that you'd recommend?

Of the books I read that qualify for the 2021 prize, here are my guesses:

Yes
Hurricane Season

No
b, Book, and Me
Breasts and Eggs
Four by Four

Maybe
Bluebeard's First Wife
Grove
Garden by the Sea

Paul wrote: "Looks like this one isn't actually out till May 2021 despite the database saying 2020 so for the 2022 prize. (and looks like 500 pages in English but that may be a placeholder)

Any already in Engl..."

It's well over a thousand pages long in the paperback I have. I don't know how tiny Archipelago print's though. Anyhow, the only other novel translated into English that I can find is "The Walnut Mansion" (the other two translations are short stories collections), so I guess that's the one to start with.

Thanks. Archipelago books aren't particularly small print - although an odd format with pages closer to landscape than portrait and deckle edges (as I recall, while since I've read one in print)

I liked the stories I read in Bluebeard’s First Wife, but b, Book, and Me I couldn’t finish.

I've read 36 so far that qualify. I'd rank them:

Yes (all shortlist contenders, first 5 would be worthy winners):
1 Discomfort of Evening (first book to do the double?)
2 The White Dress
3 The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
4 Fireflies
5 Other Name: Septology I-II
6 Echo on the Bay
7 Lord of All the Dead
8 Hurricane Season
9 Tokyo Ueno Station
10 Billiards at the Hotel Dobray
Maybe (more for longlist):
11 President's Room
12 Bluebeard's First Wife
13 Kim Jiyoung, born 1982
14 Friend
15 Dead Girls
16 The Fallen
17 The Distance Between Us
18 Society of Reluctant Dreamers
19 Grove
20 Fracture
21 Minor Detail
22 Older Brother
No (although first 5 or so would be reasonable longlisters, only 29 on I found disappointing)
23 Luminous Republic
24 Wretchedness
25 Tyll
26 Law of Lines
27 Earthlings
28 Breasts and Eggs
29 Little Eyes
30 Disaster Tourist
31 b, Book and Me
32 Slum Virgin
33 Eighth Life
34 Dark Satellites
35 Only Child
36 Pine Islands

Sara G wrote: "Of the books I read that qualify for the 2021 prize, here are my guesses:

Yes
Hurricane Season

No
b, Book, and Me
Breasts and Eggs
Four by Four

Maybe
Bluebeard's First Wife
Grove
Garden by the Sea"

I've read 5 of those and would agree with your rating in each case

Paul, who authored Fireflies?

Book of Anna has a literary theme and got some early press but I did not read it

Luis Sagasti (translated by Fionn Petch). Rather for those who like the factoids in Apeirogon. Also has a new book out in English A Musical Offering.

Charco Press. Thanks

I’m surprised you have Minor Detail at 21, Paul. I have a few of the books on your list that I can start on after the Booker list.

I can see it is very worthwhile but I didn’t click with it. I also felt - cf Apeirogon - that it was presenting one side only, particularly in the 1948 part.

Yes, Minor Detail is told from one side, but I excuse that because it was written about a Palestinian woman, by a Palestinian woman, Adania Shibli and I don’t recall it being overly critical of Israel; the situation there is what it is (in the immortal words of bigot Trump.)

I admit after reading the criticisms of The New Wilderness-that they just wandered from place to place and nothing much happened, I thought the same could be said of Minor Detail, of course the writing is much better, her inner dialogue is important, and the end definitely justifies the quiet journey to the end of the book. I haven’t read many of the others yet, but I have them, so maybe Minor Detail will slide down by list.

Do you think Billiards at the Hotel Dobray is Longlist, not Shortlist worthy? I was interested in that one. Actually, I would love a subscription to Istros, but I think that, like nyrb, they publish too many books to hope to get the ones I’m most interested in, maybe not, maybe they just have a nice backlist of published books, either way the shipping doubles the cost of each book.

It was more the 1948-9 part on Minor Detail - you'd never guess who invaded who (but I am a little oversensitive to this issue given the taint of anti-semitism that hijacked our usually anti-racist centre-left party in the UK from 2015-19)

The style deliberately keeps the reader distanced - albeit that is deliberate (indeed reviews have suggested the narrator may be on the autistic spectrum)

As for Billiards at the Hotel Dobray it snuck into my shortlist worthy category although on the fringes. A strong 4 star read but not as good as the top 9 on my list.

I can’t imagine how a Palestinian or an Israeli could be completely objective about the history of that region. They could be open-minded, but how could it not be very personal? That might be the advantage to having outsiders who have made a good faith effort, more than an effort actually, outsiders who have thoroughly researched both sides of a conflict, interviewed if possible, people from both sides of a conflict, write an account of the conflict. Although we can’t help but have opinions even if we aren’t directly impacted.

Yes agree with that. And I would be surprised if this isn't on the International Booker longlist next year.

I hope so.

The database of books has been updated to include some more eligible ones, and checking I've now read 45, so an updated list:

Worthy winners:
1 The Discomfort of Evening
2 The White Dress
3 The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
4 My Devotion
5 Fireflies
6 The Other Name: Septology I-II

Shortlist worthy:
7 The Lying Life of Adults
8 Echo on the Bay
9 Lord of All the Dead
10 Hurricane Season
11 Tokyo Ueno Station

Longlist contenders:
12 The President's Room
13 Billiards at the Hotel Dobray
14 Bluebeard's First Wife
15 Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
16 Girls Against God
17 Friend: A Novel from North Korea
18 Feebleminded
19 Dead Girls
20 The Fallen
21 The Distance Between Us
22 The Society of Reluctant Dreamers
23 Grove
24 Fracture
25 Minor Detail

Outsiders (worthwhile but not on my longlist):
26 Older Brother
27 That Time of Year
28 A Luminous Republic
29 Wretchedness
30 Long Live the Post Horn!
31 Tyll
32 The Law of Lines
33 The Adventures of China Iron
34 Earthlings
35 Breasts and Eggs
No:
36 Little Eyes
37 The Disaster Tourist
38 b, Book, and Me
39 Slum Virgin
40 The Eighth Life
41 Seven Years of Darkness
42 Dark Satellites
43 The Only Child
44 The Pine Islands
45 Rave

Short stories are eligible?

What are the dates for this prize? Fireflies was published in 2018, if that’s the same Fireflies.

I know it’s a lot of extra work to add book/author, but if you have time can you include even just the author’s last name with future books you add here, Paul? There’s a number of books here I haven't heard of before and want to look up.

Yes short stories are eligible

It is calendar 2020 - but US publication data.

Yes that Fireflies - Charco have in 2020 published lots of books in the US including several from their back catalogue such as Fireflies

I very deliberately didn't name the author as I don't think it is morally right to do that without naming the translator (given they wrote the words we read), and that requires a lot more manual searching on Goodreads. Indeed given the way the database works I actually had to work to deliberately remove the author's name.

But I've instead added links now to each of the books for easy look up.

I was interested to see the original languages of those I've read:

Arabic 1
Dutch 1
Farsi 1
French 3
German 6
Italian 1
Japanese 4
Korean 8
Norwegian 3
Portuguese 1
Slovenian 1
Spanish 14
Swedish 1

Wow, Paul. That I you! That took some time. I’m not surprised to see Korean leading the list of languages.

The eligible book are per the database as follows. I do seem to be a little overweight Korean (I've read them all). And bizarrely underweight French!

French 80
Spanish 55
German 36
Italian 20
Japanese 18
Norwegian 11
Russian 11
Swedish 11
Chinese 10
Portuguese 9
Hebrew 8
Korean 8
Dutch 6
Icelandic 4
Polish 4
Arabic 3
Croatian 3
Hungarian 3
Turkish 3
Afrikaans 2
Danish 2
Finnish 2
Serbian 2
Slovenian 2
Ukrainian 2
Armenian 1
Bengali 1
Catalan 1
Czech 1
Estonian 1
Farsi 1
Kannada 1
Romanian 1

That’s a lot of possible books!

Less than most years. Possibly a combination of less published and the database not being updated.

In theory all are eligible as well - they don’t have to be entered.

But it does include a lot of genre that is unlikely to trouble the BTBA judges given the slant of the award.

Natural History mentioned upthread. Just read an interview with the translator Megan McDowell who, with the author's permission, took a reasonably interventionist approach to the translation.

Hadn't realised she was a twin and credits that with her aptitude for translation:

I’ve talked elsewhere about how being a twin has given me a kind of language for or comfort with translation, because when you’re a twin you always in some way define yourself in relation to someone else: you have to assert your individualism and identity, but not on your own. You’re always looking into a kind of imperfect mirror. I feel like that’s what my translations do: they find their identity and stand on their own, but they start out being a piece of something else—they shared a womb, so to speak, with the original. Another part of this is that when you’re a twin, you become comfortable or accustomed very early on to using the words “we” and “us,” and the first-person singular feels a little strange. When I’m working on a translation, I do that too—I talk about “our text,” and I’m not always sure where my contribution starts and the author’s ends.

the "elsewhere" an earlier interview that reads:

I have a whole theory that twinhood made me more prone to become a translator because a translated text is like an uncanny double of the original. As a twin, you define yourself—and others define you—in relation to each other, not as a discrete entity. The result is that you struggle to find your individualism but also, perhaps, that you’re comfortable with duality. It’s applicable to translation, which we always see as a reflection of the original, but of course a translation has to stand on its own and function as a single, unified entity in the world.

I think I might call you Imperfect Mirror going forwards.

I wondered which of you would claim that for the other when I read that line!

This idea works for me, especially in regards to judging a translation. I also really liked Ronan Hession’s short story about the death of the translators wife in which he compares the author to a musical composition and the translator to the musician playing the piece.

He can have that line as I already have Walking Organ Donation Bank for him.

That’s just mean, Paul. I bet Never Let Me Go had a different feel for you two. Did you find the other looking at you with a strange look in their eyes after that book?

I was always confused why people thought of that book as speculative fiction given the children were based on Gumble. It’s why Kathy goes to Norfolk at the end of the novel.

Of course the same could be said of you, Paul. I notice Gumble hasn’t said anything, perhaps he wants you to feel at ease...

Sam wrote: "I have been touting Natural History and just wanted to note that not all will love this book"

Thanks for touting it - just finished and it is quite brilliant. Straight to the top of my list for the 2021 BTBA.

Paul wrote: "Sam wrote: "I have been touting Natural History and just wanted to note that not all will love this book"

Thanks for touting it - just finished and it is quite brilliant. Straight to the top of my..."

I thought you would like it Paul. I have been reluctant to discuss the novel other than simple gushing, because I wished readers to come to it untouched by preconcieved ideas like I did, which made the experience all the more pleasurable. I hope it makes the list. I was a bit discouraged it wasn't on the NBA translated or Kirkus prize lists. After some good reviews, the conversation on this novel has subsided and I fear the novel isn't getting the promotion it deserves since it was published during Covid lockdown and the publisher isn't a translated literature darling. World Literature Today's latest review was praising but not raving. Your endorsement ought to get some more attention to the novel here and if the BTBA selects the book, it is rich in discussion topics. But I agree, five stars, one of my best of the year and pick for the BTBA. I am looking forward to my reread.

Sam wrote: "Paul wrote: "Sam wrote: "I have been touting Natural History and just wanted to note that not all will love this book"

Thanks for touting it - just finished and it is quite brilliant. Straight to ..."

I'm reading NH right now and I realized early on that I needed to start taking notes if I wanted to be able to unpack it from a thematic standpoint. Very good so far.

I'm going to add that while NH is complex and benefits from unpacking, it is a very accessible novel, not particularly difficult to read. Milkman and Wolf Hall had more challenging prose.

Sam wrote: "I'm going to add that while NH is complex and benefits from unpacking, it is a very accessible novel, not particularly difficult to read. Milkman and Wolf Hall had more challenging prose."

Good point Sam. Not a difficult read, just a lot going on thematically.

Natural History does sound very good. It’s sounds like the same type of cerebral novel as When We Cease to Understand the World. Not in form, style or subject, but the type of novel that makes the reader sit for a few moments to let information percolate, then settle.

Well that's the end of the speculation (and renders my rankings of my 50 odd books read a bit frustratingly pointless)

http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran...

There will be no 2021 BTBA - we realized that we would probably have to put the award on hiatus for 2021 if for no other reason than that it would be rather difficult to find fourteen booksellers/translators/critics willing to read upward of 450 PDFs in the midst of, you know, 2020

They've decided to pause for a year and look back at the past 25 winners of the award instead

But for 2022 award, 2020 and 2021 books will be eligible.

Doesn't that mean they need to find fourteen booksellers/translators/critics willing to read upward of 900 PDFs in the midst of 2021?!

Paul wrote: "Well that's the end of the speculation (and renders my rankings of my 50 odd books read a bit frustratingly pointless)

http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran......"

Paul you are being too witty! On a more serious note, that is a shame since it appears we have just about exhausted prize competition for the books of 2020. I think the only longlist left unrevealed would be whatever the Pen Awards gives us, assuming they intend to offer the prize. On a brighter note, there is a big chunk of anticipated reading gone from next year. This also should prompt us to consider what we are going to read to fill our time since it is three months to Booker International.