Independent Foreign Fiction Prize: Latin America is back with a boom
Friday 11 March 2011
Related articles
During our hard-fought but well-mannered judging sessions for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, we spend too much time inspecting individual trees ever to spot the shape of the emerging wood. So I left the meeting at which we hammered out the long-list for this year's £10,000 prize happy merely that the judges – Harriett Gilbert, MJ Hyland, Catriona Kelly, Neel Mukherjee and myself – had picked 15 titles that between them represent the best, and broadest, sample of new fiction in translation that one could could hope to set before a British readership.
As indeed they do. It was only later that I spotted one big story behind the selection. Whatever comes to pass in the final stages of this prize, our sifting from the whole field of translated fiction by living writers published in the UK during 2010 does ratify one global trend. The Latin Americans have roared back. A new generation of novelists – the grandchildren, if you like, of García Márquez, Vargas Llosa and the patriarchs of the 1960s "boom" – is restoring the continent to its vanguard role in international fiction. Four of our 15 titles come from Latin American Spanish. But these books don't belong to any school or conform to any type.
From Colombia, Juan Gabriel Vásquez recruits the ghost of Jopeph Conrad into a sly and gripping counter-narrative of revolution and conspiracy (The Secret History of Costaguana). From Venezuela, Alberto Berrera Tysza distils an eerie fable of identity from a hypochondriac's psycho-drama and a looming family crisis (The Sickness). From Peru, Santiago Roncagliolo revisits the trauma of recent history in a sophisticated, page-turning political thriller (Red April). And from Argentina, Marcelo Figueras tells – with insight and inwardness – the story of another grisly era through the wide eyes of a child (Kamchatka).
Which other tales does this long-list tell? That younger German writers can often negotiate the grandest themes with a light and delicate touch – the mysteries of physics, in Juli Zeh's smart and funny intrigue Dark Matter; the fate of personality in a hi-tech, social-networked age, in Daniel Kehlmann's ingenious, comic nest of stories, Fame; or the tragic weight of the 20th-century past as focused on the single family house evoked via the burning lyricism of Jenny Erpenbeck's Visitation. From the same history-mangled terrain of Middle Europe, uproarious dark comedy drives Jachym Topol's novel of Czech lads dragged up in an emblematic orphanage after the Soviet invasion of 1968 (Gargling with Tar), and Michal Witkowski's one-off camp extravaganza about Poland's lost gay paradise of the Iron Curtian years (Lovetown).
It ought to make the news, as well, that a couple of the ranking superstars of global fiction have once more aimed high and hit home with epic novels that magisterially conjoin private life and public destiny, in Turkey – Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence – and in Israel: David Grossman's To the End of the Land. Scandinavian fiction still scales the heights, whether in the exquisite family micro-drama of son and mother in Norway's Per Petterson (I Curse the River of Time); or, from Sweden, Per Wästberg's sweeping saga of ideas and identities in shipboard ferment with Captain Cook (The Journey of Anders Sparrman).
Meanwhile, some of the stories that linger longest will dodge every trend-spotting niche and generalising dictum. They include the lapidary sadness of a lonely French mother at the end of her tether in Véronique Olmi's Beside the Sea; and the hyper-modern disorientation of Japanese youngsters in Shuichi Yoshida's satirical "whydunnit?" thriller, Villain. All in all, this long-list will – I'm delighted to report – stretch any overarching theory about the condition of world fiction to breaking-point and far beyond. Yet it does embody one certainty: our absolute dependence, as English-language readers, on the fine and subtle art of the most gifted translators. As in previous years, several of the most brilliant at work today are featured here.
Our shortlist of six will be announced at the London Book Fair on 11 April. I can't quite yet discern the path that will lead us through this lush and lavish growth to that slender copse. That's our challenge. In the meantime, enjoy an enriching wander through this forest of fiction. Warm thanks again to Arts Council England, for its unwavering commitment to this unique and precious award; and to Booktrust, which administers it – and can see the wood for the trees.
A wide world of fiction: the long-list
Jenny Erpenbeck Visitation (translated by Susan Bernofsky, from the German); Portobello
Marcelo Figueras Kamchatka (Frank Wynne; Spanish); Atlantic
David Grossman To the End of the Land (Jessica Cohen; Hebrew); Jonathan Cape
Daniel Kehlmann Fame (Carol Brown Janeway; German); Quercus
Véronique Olmi Beside the Sea (Adriana Hunter; French); Peirene Press
Orhan Pamuk The Museum of Innocence (Maureen Freely; Turkish); Faber & Faber
Per Petterson I Curse the River of Time (Charlotte Barslund with Per Petterson; Norwegian); Harvill Secker
Santiago Roncagliolo Red April (Edith Grossman; Spanish); Atlantic
Jachym Topol Gargling with Tar (David Short; Czech); Portobello
Alberto Berrera Tyszka The Sickness (Margaret Jull Costa; Spanish); MacLehose Press
Juan Gabriel Vásquez The Secret History of Costaguana (Anne McLean; Spanish); Bloomsbury
Per Wästberg The Journey of Anders Sparrman (Tom Geddes; Swedish); Granta
Michal Witkowski Lovetown (W Martin; Polish); Portobello
Shuichi Yoshida Villain (Philip Gabriel; Japanese); Harvill Secker
Juli Zeh Dark Matter (Christine Lo; German); Harvill Secker
Arts & Ents blogs
Children’s Books: Recommended read – ‘A Monster Calls’ by Patrick Ness
Thirteen-year-old Conor awakes in bed one night to discover that the yew tree outside his house has ...
Made in Chelsea – Series 5, Episode 11: Louise plays and wins at Spencer’s game
It’s hard not to feel sorry for doe-eyed Andy. He spends months pining after Louise, has huge nostr...
The Returned: ‘Simon’ – Series 1, episode 2
Fragility of life looms large over an episode that closes with the scarring on Julie's stomach. Whil...
-
Kan you believe it? Kim Kardashian and Kanye West reportedly name baby daughter 'Kaidance Donda'
-
Film review: World War Z - Brad Pitt's zombie action flick is surprisingly infectious
-
Theatre review: Daniel Radcliffe gives an admirably honest performance in Michael Grandage's The Cripple of Inishmaan - but his Irish accent isn't quite there
-
Anger Management? Charlie Sheen fires Selma Blair as his onscreen therapist with expletive-filled text
-
Vice pulls 'breathtakingly tasteless' fashion shoot glorifying the suicides of famous female authors from Sylvia Plath to Virginia Woolf
- 1 Serena Williams apologises after comment that rape victim 'shouldn't have put herself in that position'
- 2 Disability campaigners celebrate 'victory' after government rethink over plans to make it more difficult to claim disability benefits
- 3 Bankers could face jail after report urges the Government to introduce new criminal offence for reckless management
- 4 Breaking the Silence: In the reality of occupation, there are no Palestinian civilians – only potential terrorists
- 5 We never knew Nigella Lawson - and we still don’t
How will you make today delicious?
Tell us how you plan to make today delicious and you could win a £50 M&S gift card.
Win a Nook® Simple Touch eReader
Find out how Nook® is supporting the Evening Standard's Get Reading campaign - and your chance to win one.
Free reading festival for families
Follow The Standard's campaign to get London's children reading - and experience this unique event at Trafalgar Square on 13 July.
Enter the latest Independent competitions
Win anything from gadgets to five-star holidays on our competitions and offers page.
Business videos from commercial thought leaders
Watch the best in the business world give their insights into the world of business.
First night: The Cripple of Inishmaan
Scandi-geeks descend on Nordicana for fan-convention
Female aristocrats battle to inherit the title


Comments