The longlist for the International Man Booker prize has been announced with 13 authors and their 14 translators in contention for the £50,000 (€65,000) award.
It is the first time a longlist has been announced for the international version of the Man Booker which is now awarded annually on the basis of a single book.
Judges considered 155 books and the prize money will be divided between the author of the winning book and its translator.
The list includes books from 12 countries and nine languages while nominees include two Nobel Prize winners and two debut authors.
A General Theory of Oblivion - Angola
José Eduardo Agualusa
Translated by Daniel Hahn
Published by Harvill Secker
A wild patchwork of a novel that tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence.
The Story of the Lost Child - Italy
Elena Ferrante
Translated by Ann Goldstein
Published by Europa Editions UK
The fourth and final instalment of the Neapolitan Novels series, The Story of the Lost Child is the saga of the friendship between two women: brilliant, bookish Elena and fiery, uncontainable Lila.
The Vegetarian - South Korea
Han Kang
Translated by Deborah Smith
Published by Portobello Books
Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, commits a shocking act of subversion.
Mend the Living - France
Maylis de Kerangal
Translated by Jessica Moore
Published by Maclehose Press
Simon is in a coma and on life-support. Claire is desperately waiting for a heart transplant. As Simon’s parents face a heart-breaking decision, his and Claire’s lives will be fatefully joined.
Man Tiger - Indonesia
Eka Kurniawan
Translated by Labodalih Sembiring
Published by Verso Books
A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families, and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger.
The Four Books - China
Yan Lianke
Translated by Carlos Rojas
Published by Vintage, Chatto & Windus
In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician are undergoing Re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal and credentials. In charge of this process is the Child, who delights in draconian rules, monitoring behaviour and confiscating treasured books.
Tram 83 - DRC/Austria
Fiston Mwanza Mujila
Translated by Roland Glasser
Published by Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd
In a war-torn African city-state tourists of all languages and nationalities converge with students, ex-pats and locals. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the country, both mineral and human.
A Cup of Rage - Brazil
Raduan Nassar
Translated by Stefan Tobler
Published by Penguin Modern Classics
A pair of lovers - a young female journalist and an older man who owns an isolated farm in the Brazilian outback - spend the night together. The next day they proceed to destroy each other.
Ladivine - France
Marie NDiaye
Translated by Jordan Stump
Published by Maclehose Press
Clarisse Rivière’s life is shaped by a refusal to admit to her husband Richard and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper. Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan.
Death by Water - Japan
Kenzaburo Oe
Translated by Deborah Boliner Boem
Published by Atlantic Books
For the first time in his long life, Nobel laureate Kogito Choko is suffering from writer’s block. But his sister has in her possession an old and mysterious red trunk, the contents of which promise to unlock the many secrets of the father who disappeared from their lives decades before.
White Hunger - Finland
Aki Ollikainen
Translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah
Published by Peirene Press
1867: a year of devastating famine in Finland. Marja, a farmer’s wife from the north, sets off on foot through the snow with her two young children. Their goal: St Petersburg, where people say there is bread.
A Strangeness in my Mind - Turkey
Orhan Pamuk
Translated by Ekin Oklap
Published by Faber & Faber
In the four decades between 1969 and 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt and cooked rice to guarding a car park.
A Whole Life - Austria
Robert Seethaler
Translated by Charlotte Collins
Published by Pan Macmillan, Picador
Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn’t ask for her hand in marriage but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain.
