2021 International Booker Prize Longlist

The 13-title 2021 International Booker Prize longlist includes The Employees written by Olga Ravn, a Dane and a 2019 Niels Klim Award winner, and five other works of genre interest — 

  • I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping (Yale University Press)
  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis (Pushkin Press)
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Granta Books)
  • When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press)
  • The Perfect Nine: The Epic Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, translated by the author from Gikuyu (Harvill Secker)

The longlist was selected by Lucy Hughes-Hallett (chair); Aida Edemariam; Neel Mukherjee; Olivette Otele; and George Szirtes. 

The complete longlist follows the jump.

The 2021 International Booker longlist

  • I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping (Yale University Press)
  • At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis (Pushkin Press)
  • The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili, translated from Georgian by Elizabeth Heighway (Peirene Press)
  • The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell (Granta Books)
  • When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West (Pushkin Press)
  • The Perfect Nine: The Epic Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, translated by the author from Gikuyu (Harvill Secker)
  • The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken (Lolli Editions)
  • Summer Brother by Jaap Robben, translated from Dutch by David Doherty (World Editions)
  • An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, translated from German by Jackie Smith (MacLehose Press)
  • Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette (Fitzcarraldo Editions) 
  • In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale (Fitzcarraldo Editions) 
  • Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley (And Other Stories)
  • The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti (Picador)

[Thanks to Lise Andreasen for the story.]