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Books in Translation Other Prizes

The 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Shortlist

The shortlist for the 2014 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was announced this morning. I was lucky enough to receive the list a few days ago and was pleased to discover that I’d already read the majority of the books. A Meal in Winter was the only novel I hadn’t tried so I decided to pick up a copy from the library and read it over the weekend – an easy task since it was so short! Unfortunately I can’t comment on the short story collections, but hopefully my summaries will give you a good idea about the other books.

Strange Weather in Tokyo Translated from the Japanese by Allison Markin Powell

Strange Weather in Tokyo by Hiromi Kawakami

Five words from the blurb: romance, old, teacher, friendship, solace

A beautifully written story about the friendship that develops between a young woman and one of her former high school teachers.

 

The Mussel Feast Translated from the German by Jamie Bulloch

The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke

Five words from the blurb: German, family, issues, revolutions, understand

Gripping novella which shows how life in a repressed state mirrors that of a family living under the power of a tyrannical father. It’s amazing how much complexity is crammed into such a small book!

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A Meal in WinterTranslated from the French by Sam Taylor

A Meal in Winter by Hubert Mingarelli

Five words from the blurb: soldiers, capture, Jewish, prisoner, choice

Simple, atmospheric story about German soldiers who have been asked to track down Jews for execution. I can’t fault the writing, but I’ve heard a similar stories many times before.

 

A Man In Love: My Struggle Book 2 (My Struggle 2) Translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett 

A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard

Five words from the blurb: father, life, holidays, neighbours, children

This book was much lighter than A Death in the Family, the first in the series. I found it lacking depth and became bored by its ordinariness. I’m afraid I abandoned it, but others love its honesty.

DNF

 

Revenge Translated from the Japanese by Stephen Snyder

Revenge by Yoko Ogawa

Five words from the blurb: woman, bakery, disconnected, chaos, cruelty

I enjoyed The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa, but I’m afraid my dislike for short stories means I haven’t tried this one. I you enjoy the short form then I’m sure you’ll find a lot to appreciate in this one.

 

The Iraqi Christ Translated from the Arabic by Jonathan Wright

The Iraqi Christ by Hassan Blasim

Five words from the blurb: surreal, absurdities, Iraq, human, war

This collection of stories has been described as ‘Arabic Gothic’. It sounds so different from anything else I’ve read that I’m tempted to try it, despite the short story format!

Who should win the IFFP?

Obviously I can’t comment on the quality of the short story collections, but I think The Mussel Feast will be hard to beat. For such a short book it combines a staggering amount of information. It has everything from emotion and tension, through to complex ideas about power and communism. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for it!

Who do you think should win?

For other opinions on these books read the reviews of the Shadow IFFP Jury, a group of bloggers who’ve read the entire IFFP longlist:

Dolce Bellezza  (twitter @bellezzamjs)
Follow the Thread (twitter @David_Heb)
Tony’s Reading List (twitter @tony_malone)
Winstonsdad’s Blog (twitter @stuallen)
Messengers Booker (twitter @messy_tony)
and the blog free Jacqui Wine ( twitter @jacquiWine)
 
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Orange Prize Other

The 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist

The 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Shortlist has just been announced.

The shortlisted books are:

The LowlandBurial RitesAmericanah

A Girl is a Half-Formed ThingThe GoldfinchThe Undertaking

  • The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
  • The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  • Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
  • Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  • The Undertaking by Audrey Magee

I predicted three out of six correctly, but am quite shocked that Booker Prize winning The Luminaries didn’t make the cut. It is also disappointing that my two personal favourites, The Signature of All Things and Eleven Days, failed to make it through.

Overall it’s a strong list, but I expect A Girl is A Half-Formed Thing to take the winning spot.

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2014 Books in Translation

The Giraffe’s Neck by Judith Schalansky

The Giraffe's Neck Translated from the German by Shaun Whiteside

Five words from the blurb: teacher, scorns, students, species, succeed

The Giraffe’s Neck is narrated by Frau Lomark, a biology teacher who believes that Darwin’s principle of evolution should be applied to humans. She thinks that most teachers waste their time indulging their less-able pupils; whilst she prefers to concentrate on giving her knowledge to intelligent individuals – the ones that will make the most use of it.

Frau Lomark was a wonderfully bitter character. Her observations could be considered offensive, but there was something about their honesty that drew me in. The book raised many interesting questions about how much teachers are able to change the lives of their pupils and whether or not is it possible to engage everyone:

It just wasn’t worth it, dragging the weak ones along with you. They were nothing but millstones that held the rest back. Born recidivists. Parasites on the healthy body of the class. Sooner or later the dimmer bulbs would be left behind anyway. It was advisable to confront them with the truth as early as possible, rather than giving them another chance after each failure.

The writing quality was outstanding. Some people might find the biological details confusing, but I was very impressed. It is rare to find scientific information combined with such beautiful writing and I loved to see the moral arguments backed up with sound genetic data.

Unfortunately the plot didn’t develop as cleverly as I’d hoped. The momentum that built up over the first half of the book disappeared, leaving me a little disappointed.

Overall this was a thought provoking book, with many bold concepts. The minor problems with the plot can be forgiven because of the general intelligence of the text.

Recommended to anyone interested in the nature versus nurture debate and the way it applies to teachers.

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Other Uncategorized

March Summary and Plans for April

March was a mixed month, mainly due to me trying the final books on the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Longlist. Overall it included a fantastic range of books and it was nice to see the variety, despite the fact they weren’t all to my taste.

I also read a lot of solidly good reads and I particularly recommend Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol, a beautifully creepy book with a gripping plot that raises interesting questions about humanity – and it includes giant humanoid toads!

Book of the Month

Cold Skin 

Books Reviewed in March

Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol 

The Night Watch by Sarah Waters 

The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt 

Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter 

Labor Day by Joyce Maynard 

Good Kings, Bad Kings by Susan Nussbaum 

Prayers for the Stolen by Jennifer Clement 

Reasons She Goes to the Woods by Deborah Kay Davies 

The Dogs of Littlefield by Suzanne Berne 

The Shadow of the Crescent Moon by Fatima Bhutto 

Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen 

Plans for April

On Friday the longlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize (for debut fiction) will be announced. I’m going to be trying all the books on the list with Dan from Utterbiblio, Kaite Welsh, Heather from Between the Covers and Sarah Noakes. It will be interesting to compare notes and see if we reach the same decision as the real judges.

I’m currently reading two chunksters:

From the Fatherland With Love by Ryu Murakami
The Quick by Lauren Owen

They couldn’t be more different, but I’m loving them both so far.

I probably won’t have time for much else, but I’m sure I’ll be able to squeeze a random read in some where.

Have a wonderful April!

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2000 - 2007 Books in Translation

Cold Skin by Albert Sánchez Piñol

Cold Skin Translated from the Catalan by Cheryl Leah Morgan

Five words from the blurb: Antarctic, man, castaway, deranged, sea

I hadn’t heard of this book, but when I spotted it in a charity shop with an endorsement from David Mitchell on the cover I snapped it up. I’ve had amazing success with Mitchell’s recommendations and this didn’t disappoint either. Cold Skin is a beautifully creepy read, with a gripping plot that raises interesting questions about humanity.

Cold Skin begins with a young man taking up the position of weather observer on an island in the Antarctic Circle. He is left in this desolate environment for a year, with only the lighthouse keeper for company. This blurb led me to believe I’d be reading a quiet book about freezing temperatures and loneliness so I was shocked to discover that it is really a battle for survival involving giant humanoid toads!

The characterisation was fantastic. The interaction between the unnamed weather man and the lighthouse keeper was beautifully observed and I loved the way their differing personalities clashed. It’s unusual for the two central characters to hate each other so much and I found this a refreshing change from everything else I’ve read recently.

It had many similarities with Blindness by José Saramago, but I found Cold Skin easier to stomach. Giant toads don’t exist so they don’t give me nightmares; instead they made me think about fear and the instinctive behaviour it creates. It also cleverly showed Man’s impact on the environment, questioning our desire to control any elements of nature we don’t like:

The last flash of lightning illuminated my mind. I had a thousand nameless monsters against me. But they weren’t really my true enemies any more than an earthquake has a vendetta against buildings. They simply existed.

The pacing of the book was perfect. It wasn’t a thriller-like roller-coaster of emotion, but the tension slowly mounted and clever concepts were added throughout. The ending was also fantastic. I won’t spoil it, but I can’t think of many other books that end so perfectly.

This is the best book I’ve read so far this year. Highly recommended.

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Cold Skin is a great companion read for War with the Newts by Karel Capek. I’ve only read two books containing humanoid amphibians and have loved them both. Can you recommend any others?

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Orange Prize Other

Who will be shortlisted for the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction?

I’ve now tried all the books on the 2014 Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction longlist and overall I was very impressed by the quality of the books. It is probably the strongest year I’ve ever seen and narrowing it down to six books is a tough job. I cut it down to 11 books very easily, but deciding which 5 extra ones to remove was more science than judgement – something that probably doesn’t exist on a judging panel!

Here’s my prediction for the 2014 shortlist:

The Signature of All ThingsEleven DaysThe Lowland

A Girl is a Half-Formed ThingThe GoldfinchThe Luminaries

  • The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
  • Eleven Days by Lea Carpenter
  • The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri
  • A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing by Eimear McBride
  • The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
  • The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton

Reasons for my selection:

  • Eleven Days is outstanding and deserves to be put through, no questions asked.
  • Reasons She Goes to the Woods by Deborah Kay Davies wouldn’t be out of place on the shortlist, but I don’t think they’ll pick two experimental books and I think A Girl Is A Half-Formed Thing is the stronger of the two.
  • The Signature of All Things is the best piece of historical fiction on the longlist.
  • The Luminaries will glide onto the shortlist without any disagreement because of its ambition, scope and writing quality.
  • I don’t think they’ll put two books about immigration/identity through. Americanah is a fantastic character study, but I think The Lowland will pip it at the post.
  • The Goldfinch is loved by the majority of readers. I think several members of the judging panel will be rooting for it. 
  • Burial Rites would probably have made the cut in previous years, but I think it is sadly outclassed this year. The Luminaries and The Signature of All Things take up all the historical fiction quota.
  • The Flamethrowers and All the Birds, Singing are also strong contenders. I wouldn’t be surprised to see either on the list, but I couldn’t justify removing any of my six to include them.
  • The longlist contained a few odd choices so I predict that I’ll be wrong and at least one left field book will make the cut. Possibly switching The Goldfinch for Still Life with Bread Crumbs?

Who do you think will make the Baileys Women’s Prize for fiction shortlist?