Fosse's The Other Name Longlisted for International Booker Prize
The judges of the 2020 International Booker Prize revealed the 13 novels longlisted for the prestigious award celebrating the finest translated fiction from around the world. This year’s longlist includes Jon Fosse’s The Other Name, translated from the Norwegian by Damion Searls—the first book in Fosse’s three-volume magnum opus, Septology—which will be published by Transit Books in April.
The Other Name follows the lives of two men living close to each other on the west coast of Norway. The year is coming to a close and Asle, an aging painter and widower, is reminiscing about his life. He lives alone, his only friends being his neighbor, Åsleik, a bachelor and traditional Norwegian fisherman-farmer, and Beyer, a gallerist who lives in Bjørgvin, a couple hours’ drive south of Dylgja, where he lives. There, in Bjørgvin, lives another Asle, also a painter. He and the narrator are doppelgangers—two versions of the same person, two versions of the same life.
Written in hypnotic prose that shifts between the first and third person, The Other Name calls into question concrete notions around subjectivity and the self. What makes us who we are? And why do we lead one life and not another?
The prize aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality fiction from all over the world and to promote the work of translators. The contribution of both author and translator is given equal recognition, with the £50,000 prize split between them. Each shortlisted author and translator will receive £1,000, bringing the total value of the prize to £62,000.
This year the judges considered 124 books. The full 2020 International Booker Prize longlist is:
Red Dog by Willem Anker (trans. Michel Heyns)
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree, by Azar Shokoofeh (trans. Anonymous)
The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (trans. Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh)
The Other Name: Septology I-II by Jon Fosse (trans. Damion Searls)
The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvili (trans. by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin)
Serotonin by Michel Houellebecq (trans. Shaun Whiteside)
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (trans. Ross Benjamin)
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (trans. Stephen Snyder)
Faces on the Tip of My Tongue by Emmanuelle Pagano (trans. Sophie Lewis and Jennifer Higgins)
Little Eyes by Samantha Schweblin (trans. Megan McDowell)
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (trans. Michele Hutchison)
Mac and His Problem by Enrique Vila-Matas (trans. Margaret Jull Costa and Sophie Hughes)
The longlist was selected by a panel of five judges, chaired by Ted Hodgkinson, Head of Literature and Spoken Word at Southbank Centre. The panel also includes: Lucie Campos, director of the Villa Gillet, France's centre for international writing; Man Booker International Prize-winning translator and writer Jennifer Croft; LA Times Book Prize for Fiction-winning author Valeria Luiselli and writer, poet and musician Jeet Thayil, whose novel Narcopolis was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2012.
Ted Hodgkinson says:
“What a thrill to share a longlist of such breadth and brilliance, reflecting a cumulative artistry rooted in dialogue between authors and translators, and possessing a power to enlarge the scope of lives encountered on the page, from the epic to the everyday. Whether reimagining foundational myths, envisioning dystopias of disquieting potency, or simply setting the world ablaze with the precision of their perceptions, these are books that left indelible impressions on us as judges. In times that increasingly ask us to take sides, these works of art transcend moral certainties and narrowing identities, restoring a sense of the wonderment at the expansive and ambiguous lot of humanity.”
The shortlist for the 2020 International Booker Prize will be announced on Thursday, 2 April, at an event at Ennismore Sessions House in London.
Together, the two Booker Prizes reward the best fiction from around the globe that is published in English in the UK and Ireland. The Booker Prizes are sponsored by Crankstart, the charitable foundation of Sir Michael Moritz and his wife, Harriet Heyman.
For media inquiries, contact Adam and Ashley Levy at editors@transitbooks.org
About Transit Books
Transit Books is a nonprofit publisher of international and American literature, based in Oakland, California. Founded in 2015, Transit Books publishes a carefully curated list of award-winning literary fiction, narrative nonfiction, essay, and prose that falls somewhere in between. Transit authors have received or been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the International Booker Prize, the National Translation Award, the Windham-Campbell Prize, and more.