Impac longlist goes further than other prizes

Dublin award lineup has room for novels from 17 languages, opening window on best world literature, says judge Tash Aw

As a reader, I've always felt that the real thrill of prize nomination lists lies not so much in the winner they produce, but in the surprises they throw up along the way – the discovery of writers and novels who might otherwise have remained outside our fields of vision. And it is for this reason that the announcement of the Impac Dublin International Literary Award longlist is a gift for readers in search of unexpected delights.

First things first: the Impac longlist is not like other longlists; it is not a handful of carefully selected books that will be further winnowed to achieve the shortlist. Rather, it is a full list of the books competing for next year's prize: every single title nominated by 110 participating libraries across the world. Each library can select up to three titles published in English (including translations), but many end up nominating the same novel – Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies and Richard Ford's Canada received nine nominations each – and so the list consists of a formidable 152 titles rather than a truly gargantuan 300.

It is this lack of pre-selection – no limit on publishers' entries, no pre-selection of titles – that makes the Impac longlist so interesting and varied, if not slightly idiosyncratic. Nobel, Booker and Pulitzer Prize-winners (Herta Müller, Peter Carey, Pat Barker) sit alongside determinedly commercial novels (Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl, Ian Rankin's Standing in Another Man's Grave). Giant New York Times bestsellers (JK Rowling, Richard Ford) jostle for the judges' attention with writers published by small independent presses in Ethiopia or Bosnia (Tariku Abas Etenesh, Selvedin Avdić). Libraries are free to nominate whatever novel they wish, as long as they consider their choice representative of "excellence", but it is clear from the list that libraries interpret this differently, which results in its unpredictability and democracy.

For me, the real attraction of the huge scale of the Impac longlist is the inclusion of translated works, which creates a feeling that literature is universal, and that readers all over the world are somehow participating in a joint exercise of discovering what people are reading elsewhere. Over the past two years, I've been devoting much time and energy to the art of translating fiction, and have been struck by just how much readers in English are missing out because of the lack of commercial support for titles in translation – so the inclusion of 41 novels drawn from 17 languages on the Impac list is a way of opening a window to the vast wealth of non-Anglophone literature. So far, seven translated titles have won the Impac Dublin award, so these novels are not on the list for mere decoration.

The award has a reputation for producing quirky, if not downright obscure, winners. That may be to do with the fact that some winning authors have been little known to English-speaking readers – Michel Houellebecq, Javier Marias, Tahar Ben Jelloun and Per Pettersen were already well-established in their own countries and indeed elsewhere, but winning the Impac certainly boosted their reputations. However, the last three winners have been Anglophone (City of Bohane by Kevin Barry, Even the Dogs by Jon McGregor, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann), and it's also true that reading books from so many different literary cultures and genres helps the reader think about fiction in different, less rigid ways – this too might explain the unconventional results. Reading a Nobel Prize winner followed by a Scandinavian crime novel is not something most readers will be in the habit of doing, but I'm looking forward to the experience.

The shortlist will be announced next April

The longlist in full

The Book of Emotions by João Almino (translated from Portuguese by Elizabeth Jackson)

Waiting for the Monsoon by Threes Anna (translated from Dutch by Barbara Potter Fasting)

No One Is Here Except All Of Us by Ramona Ausubel

Swimming to Elba by Silvia Avallone (translated from Italian by Antony Shugaar)

Seven Terrors by Selvedin Avdić (translated from Bosnian by Coral Petkovich)

The Voyage by Murray Bail

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker (translated from Dutch by David Colmer)

The Guilty One by Lisa Ballantyne

Emmaus by Alessandro Baricco (translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein)

Toby's Room by Pat Barker

In the Kingdom of Men by Kim Barnes

Alfa Romeo 1300 and Other Miracles by Fabio Bartolomei (translated from Italian by Antony Shugaar)

The Teleportation Accident by Ned Beauman

Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron

The Woman Who Dived into the Heart of the World by Sabina Berman (translated from Spanish by Lisa Dillman)

Miss Fuller by April Bernard

Kaltenburg by Marcel Beyer (translated from German by Alan Bance)

HHhH by Laurent Binet (translated from French by Sam Taylor)

The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian

Waiting for Sunrise by William Boyd

Lola Bensky by Lily Brett

Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt

Spilt Milk by Chico Buarque (translated from Portuguese by Alison Entrekin)

The Literature Express by Lasha Bugadze (translated from Georgian by Maya Kiasashvili)

Léon and Louise by Alex Capus (translated from German by John Brownjohn)

The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash

Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon

Gold by Chris Cleave

Finton Moon by Gerard Collins

The Orchardist by Amanda Coplin

Questions of Travel by Michelle De Kretser

The House I Loved by Tatiana de Rosnay

70% Acrylic 30% Wool by Viola Di Grado (translated from Italian by Michael Reynolds)

A Partial History of Lost Causes by Jennifer DuBois)

A Hologram for the King by Dave Eggers

The Round House by Louise Erdrich

Sufficient Grace by Amy Espeseth

Eyes and Mist by Tariku Abas Etenesh

The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison

The Panopticon by Jenni Fagan

A Possible Life by Sebastian Faulks

The Intentions Book by Gigi Fenster

419 by Will Ferguson

My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante – translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein

Absolution by Patrick Flanery

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Canada by Richard Ford

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain

Follow the Spinning Sun by Leandro Thomas Gonzales

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

Memoirs of an Imaginary Friend by Matthew Green

Arcadia by Lauren Groff

The Big Music by Kirsty Gunn

Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding

Axolotl Roadkill by Helene Hegemann (translated from German by Katy Derbyshire)

The Dog Stars by Peter Heller

The Elephant Keepers' Children by Peter Høeg (translated from Danish by Martin Aitken)

May We Be Forgiven by AM Homes

In One Person by John Irving

The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

The Open World by Stephanie Johnson

A Lady Cyclist's Guide to Kashgar by Suzanne Joinson

The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson (translated from Swedish by Rod Bradbury)

The Illicit Happiness of Other People by Manu Joseph

The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits

The Murder of Halland by Pia Juul (translated from Danish by Martin Aitken)

The Cannon was Red Hot by Vladimir Kecmanović (translated from Serbian by Sofija S̆Korić)

The Daughters of Mars by Tom Keneally

Flight Behavior by Barbara Kingsolver

A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (translated from Norwegian by Don Bartlett)

Lost Voices by Christopher Koch

The Dinner by Herman Koch (translated from Dutch by Sam Garrett)

The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam

Sea Hearts by Margo Lanagan

Capital by John Lanchester

Anna From Away by DR MacDonald

People Park by Pasha Malla

Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel

A Blessed Snarl by Samuel Thomas Martin

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis

The German Lottery by Miha Mazzini (translated from Slovenian by Urška Zupanec)

In the Absence of Heroes by Anthony McCarten

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan

Railsea by China Miéville

Heft by Liz Moore

Home by Toni Morrison

The Hunger Angel by Herta Müller (translated from German by Philip Boehm)

Island of A Thousand Mirrors by Nayomi Munaweera

Three Strong Women by Marie Ndiaye (translated from French by John Fletcher)

Phantom by Jo Nesbø (translated from Norwegian by Don Bartlett)

Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman (translated from Spanish by Nick Caistor and Lorenza Garcia)

Mudwoman by Joyce Carol Oates

Flying Leap by Ralf W Oliver

The Light of Amsterdam by David Park

The Forrests by Emily Perkins

Em and the Big Hoom by Jerry Pinto

Persecution – The Friendly Fire of Memories by Alessandro Piperno (translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein)

Freeman by Leonard Pitts, Jr,

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

True by Riikka Pulkkinen (translated from Finnish by Lola Rogers)

Standing in Another Man's Grave (by Ian Rankin)

The Cove by Ron Rash

Above All Things by Tanis Rideout

Ignorance by Michèle Roberts

The Lifeboat by Charlotte Rogan

The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling

The Watch by Joydeep Roy-Bhattacharya

The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan

The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg (translated from Finnish by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah)

Dominion by CJ Sansom

Light Falling on Bamboo by Lawrence Scott

Umbrella by Will Self

Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple

Honour by Elif Shafak (translated from Turkish by Elif Shafak)

The Perfect Landscape by Ragna Sigurdardottir (translated from Icelandic by Sarah Bowen)

The Fallen Angel by Daniel Silva

Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

NW by Zadie Smith

This Bright River by Patrick Somerville

The Purchase by Linda Spalding

Risk by CK Stead

The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman

The Canvas by Benjamin Stein (translated from German by Brian Zumhagen)

A Matter of Life and Death or Something by Ben Stephenson)

The Garden of Evening Mists by Twan Eng Tan

The Guard by Peter Terrin (translated from Dutch by David Colmer)

Narcopolis by Jeet Thayil

The Lower River by Paul Theroux

Ru by Kim Thúy (translated from French by Sheila Fischman)

Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

The Testament of Mary by Colm Tóibín

The Beginner's Goodbye by Anne Tyler

Night Dancer by Chika Unigwe

Dirt by David Vann

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa (translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman)

The Sound of Things Falling by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (translated from Spanish by Anne McLean)

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas (translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey and Anne McLean)

Indian Horse by Richard Wagamese

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker

Mesmerized by Alissa Walser (translated from German by Jamie Bulloch)

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter

Skagboys by Irvine Welsh

Jack Holmes and His Friend by Edmund White

Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

An Available Man by Hilma Wolitzer

The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood

The Rent Collector by Camron Wright

The Prisoner of Heaven by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (translated from Spanish by Lucia Graves)

The Method by Juli Zeh (translated from German by Sally-Ann Spencer)

Impac prizeAwards and prizesFictionAnne TylerJeet ThayilWill SelfGillian FlynnRichard FordMario Vargas LlosaNobel prize for literatureNew York Times
theguardian.com © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds