Italian writer Elena Ferrante, who writes using a pseudonym and Nobel laureates Orhan Pamuk of Turkey and Kenzaburo Oe of Japan are among 13 writers longlisted for the Booker International Prize.
Italian writer Elena Ferrante, who writes using a pseudonym and Nobel laureates Orhan Pamuk of Turkey and Kenzaburo Oe of Japan are among 13 writers longlisted for the Booker International Prize. The previously biannual prize has been combined with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and from this year will be awarded annually to a single book.
The £50,000 prize will be divided equally between the author of the winning book and its translator. The “Booker Dozen” was culled by a panel of five judges, chaired by Independent writer Boyd Tonkin, from a total of 155 books.
The longlist includes The Four Books by Chinese author Yan Lianke which has been banned in China. Ferrante is longlisted for the final novel in her Neapolitan series, The Story of the Lost Child, Pamuk for A Strangeness in My Mind, and Oe for Death by Water.
The other longlisted writers are José Eduardo Agualusa (Angola) for A General Theory of Oblivion, South Korea’s Han Kang for critically-acclaimed The Vegetarian, France’s Maylis de Kerangel for Mend the Living and Marie NDiaye for Ladivine, Indonesian Eka Kurniawan for Man Tiger, Congolese writer Fiston Mwanza Mujila for Tram 83, Raduan Nassar (Brazil) for A Cup of Rage, Finland’s Aki Ollikainen for White Hunger and Robert Seethaler (Austria) for A Whole Life.
The shortlist of six books will be revealed on April 14 and the winner will be announced on May 16.
