The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
Best Translated Book Award
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2021 BTBA Speculation
I think it is definitely a pandemic casualty.
Paul wrote: "And I am genuinely a bit miffed that I'd wasted time trying to produce a complete ranking of eligible books - I even have a spreadsheet set up for it!"If it's any consolation, your time was not wasted at all for those of us who have greatly benefitted from your list. The lists like yours is a great source that helps me select the books. In fact, sometimes I enjoy more the books that didn't make it as finalists than those that did as was the case with the Booker this year.
ThanksAlthough there are several people on this forum who aren't speaking to me after they followed by recommendation for the best book on this list (and also on the International Booker)!
Perhaps we should have our own 2021 BTBA.
LOL. I think I know what's that book, I stayed about a mile away from it! :-)Well, The Mookse & the Gripes' own version of 2021 BTBA might not be a bad idea at all. Seriously.
OK here's the Paul BTBA 2021 Awards, based on the 52 eligible books I have read (may be some missing):Worthy winners:
1 The Discomfort of Evening
2 The White Dress
3 Natural History
4 I is Another: Septology III-V
5 The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
6 My Devotion
7 Fireflies
Shortlist worthy:
8 The Other Name: Septology I-II
9 The Lying Life of Adults
10 Echo on the Bay
11 Lord of All the Dead
12 Hurricane Season
13 Tokyo Ueno Station
Longlist contenders:
14 Billiards at the Hotel Dobray
15 Bluebeard's First Wife
16 The President's Room
17 Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
18 Girls Against God
19 Exposition
20 Friend: A Novel from North Korea
21 Feebleminded
22 Dead Girls
23 Ordesa
24 The Fallen
25 The Distance Between Us
26 The Society of Reluctant Dreamers
Outsiders (worthwhile but not on my longlist):
27 Minor Detail
28 Grove
29 Fracture
30 That Time of Year
31 Older Brother
32 The Bitch
33 A Luminous Republic
34 Wretchedness
35 Long Live the Post Horn!
36 Tyll
37 Ramifications
38 The Law of Lines
39 The Adventures of China Iron
40 Earthlings
41 Breasts and Eggs
No:
42 Little Eyes
43 The Disaster Tourist
44 The Honjin Murders
45 b, Book, and Me
46 Slum Virgin
47 The Eighth Life
48 Seven Years of Darkness
49 Dark Satellites
50 The Only Child
51 The Pine Islands
52 Rave
Impressive! I read a few and plan on reading a few more from your list. Hard to believe (given your comprehensive list), but I think you didn't include all eligible ones that you read. Exposition caught my attention after reading your review and I see that it was published in the US (Dorothy Project) this year. There may be more... Thanks for the link to the database on PW!
I’d be up for a M&G BTBA partly because quite a few Paul listed I have, but haven’t read yet. I don’t want to buy more books until I read what I’ve received from subscriptions, but didn’t get to because I was reading for a prize.I’m prized out and excited about the free reading for the next few months, but based on Paul’s list I would be reading those books anyway.
How would MGBTBA work?
Not sure re a MGBTBA. Could do a dynamic rankings based on books people have read from the eligibility list (rather like the MnG book of the year we will likely run shortly and have run in previous years).
Vesna wrote: "I think you didn't include all eligible ones that you read. Exposition caught my attention after reading your review and I see that it was published in the US (Dorothy Project) this year. There may be more..."Good spot! Wonder how many more I missed! Will add to the post
Paul wrote: "Not sure re a MGBTBA. Could do a dynamic rankings based on books people have read from the eligibility list (rather like the MnG book of the year we will likely run shortly and have run in previous..."Paul, I think it's a fantastic idea. It's really an opportunity to discover new books, authors, translators...
There are 3 other books that peaked my interest after reading your reviews, it would be interesting to see how you would rank them:
My Devotion
Untold Night and Day
A Musical Offering
The last two are not yet in the PW database (I wonder if there was a slight snafu with their listing of Sagasti's books... either way, I definitely plan to read A Musical Offering).
There are some that are US releases the Paul hasn't included.Mansour's Eyes would be at least shortlist worthy.
Some of these others I have read; some I have not. Just throwing them out.
Abigail
The Black Cathedral
The Book of Anna
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gikuyu and Mumbi
The Sword and the Spear
A Long Petal of the Sea
The Wondrous and Tragic Life of Ivan and Ivana
Eartheater
At Night All Blood is Black
The Hole
Miss Iceland
Wretchedness
Bring Me the Head of Quentin Tarantino: Stories
An Inventory of Losses
The Devil's Country unlisted translation of Perla Suez's El país del diablo
Sam wrote: "There are some that are US releases the Paul hasn't included.Mansour's Eyes would be at least shortlist worthy.
Some of these others I have read; some I have not. Just throwing th..."
More to choose from, that's great! Seeing Abigail reminded me that the original authors don't have to be alive for BTBA (as long as these are first translations of their work) which makes the NYRB and similar presses interesting to explore.
I was pretty much MIA for last year's BTBA (didn't even finish the longlist) but about three weeks ago I decided to turn my attention to BTBA eligible books until the longlist comes out. I'm sticking with that. I don't care that there won't be an official longlist. We'll make our own.So far I've only read maybe ten eligible books. Top of my list is Peter Weiss' Aesthetics of Resistance, but you need to read V1 to appreciate V2, which is the one that came out this year. While not my cup of tea, I always recommend any book published by Dorothy, and Nathalie Leger's trilogy (Exposition, Suite for Barbara Loden and White Dress) is very different, and extremely thought provoking, as are all Dorothy publications. The first and third of these books were published this year. But read them all.
Seconded on the Leger trilogy - the final book is 2nd/51 in my list.
Sam wrote: "There are some that are US releases the Paul hasn't included."For avoidance of doubt the list I put there is the one's I've read. There are c350 others on the PW list.
I think we do have to go by that list though as otherwise it is too tricky to assess eligibility (especially with the US/UK publication date thing with publishers like Charco)
https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/t...
click 2020 and select genre = fiction
Vesna wrote: "There are 3 other books that peaked my interest after reading your reviews, it would be interesting to see how you would rank them:My Devotion
Untold Night and Day
A Musical Offering"
My Devotion was on my list - very near the top.
The other two I won't add as they aren't on PW database. But if I did they'd both figure highly:
Untold Day and Night would be 11th (ahead of Lord of All the Dead).
A Musical Offering would be 15th (ahead of Billiards..). Very good but not quite as good as Fireflies.
Both in the "shortlist worthy" category (albeit 15 is perhaps too many for that)
Paul wrote: "he other two I won't add as they aren't on PW database. But if I did they'd both figure highly:"I noticed at the PW database that they ask for any suggestions and corrections, so I think they are open to more additions. Untold Day and Night is probably not yet listed because it's been published by a very small press in US, The Overlook Press.
Ah, I somehow missed to see My Devotion on your list, so glad that you consider it among the worthy winners. I can't wait to read it.
Paul-I'm looking at your highest ranked books and I don't think I is Another: Septology III-V is eligible. It won't be published in the US until 2021.
And what are we doing with all of these Charco books that show up on PW's 2020 list even though they were clearly published in 2019, like Fireflies?
Hmmmmm ... this is getting tricky. They have said the PW database this year is incomplete and perhaps given no BTBA there's less incentive for them to tidy it up.Yes I was surprised to see I is Another there and that does seem wrong. [Although I'm also a bit bemused why it and Volume 1 come out in the US afterwards given the publishing strategy appears to be simultaneous publication of originals and translations each October.]
Charco is trickier. Charco have been publishing books since 2017 in UK and they could be purchased from US. However, officially they only distributed books into the US from 2019 and they started with their backlist.
https://www.thebookseller.com/news/ch...#
"Consortium will commence distribution with five Charco titles in its coming autumn season, led by Resistance by Brazilian Julián Fuks, and the 2018 International Man Booker longlisted Die, My Love by Argentinean author Ariana Harwicz."
By end 2019 Charco had 18 books published in UK of which from above only 5 were published in US. The PW database actually has only 3 published in 2019:
- Die my Love [which indeed made the 2020 BTBA, but was out much earlier in the UK, I read it in 2017]
- Resistance
- Fish Soup
And The Wind That Lays Waste made the 2020 BTBA but from another publisher
Fitzcarraldo are another strange one incidentally - as some of their books are published in US under their name (eg Bricks and Mortar from the 2018 BTBA list for 2017 books, although in the UK it was a 2016 book), other by Riverhead (eg Tokarczuk) and others by Transit (eg Fosse).
So overall:
- for publishers like Charco I'm inclined to trust the PW database to assess whether and when they are technically published in US. Unless for Charco we know the other 2 2019 books from somewhere else?
- but there are some obvious errors on certain books e.g. Septology III-V
Generally how do people want to do this? 1. Agree on a large eligibility list (PW database? Or PW database but agreed corrections?] then do dynamic rankings
2. Try to agree on a shorter list of possible contenders to win (e.g. we each nominate 5 or so absolute favourites?) and then rank among that list.
Or any other ideas?
Paul wrote: "Hmmmmm ... this is getting tricky. They have said the PW database this year is incomplete and perhaps given no BTBA there's less incentive for them to tidy it up.Yes I was surprised to see I is A..."
It gets more confusing when it comes to format. I is Another Kindle edition is available to me through Amazon but that will end at some time and the U.S. hard edition will come out and they will probably issue their own ebook as they did with The Other Name.
It is a bit of a mess. When Burnt Sugar was announced as a longlist choice, the only option I had to read it from a U.S. publisher was the audiobook.
Hard editions and ebooks were unavailable except as imports.
Paul wrote: "Generally how do people want to do this? 1. Agree on a large eligibility list (PW database? Or PW database but agreed corrections?] then do dynamic rankings
2. Try to agree on a shorter list of ..."
My thought would be to see if there is any extended interest from the group in reading a shorlist. If there were only 3-4 participants, I would not pursue it. If the group was behind it, I would suggest we take some time and cull a shortlist from your first suggestion (with hopefully the input from other members) by letting members post their rankings of books read. I would suggest a shortlist of no more than 10 books, and to keep the list from getting too esoteric, I would suggest at least half of the list have support of at least one but perhaps two industry supported authorities (for example an award nomination or a best books of the year listing from a major publication.) The Booker and NBA winners would be automatically included. My thoughts were to give all books an even shot, so good traditional novels would be as welcome as experimental novels, and popular acclaimed novels would be as welcome as ignored Indies. I would float the thought with the rest of the group to see if there was another project read that the members would prefer though, like another previous yearly Booker shortlist or something else. I will probably pay attention to the Best of the BTBA as well, though I have my winner already selected.
I would still go ahead with this idea even if there are initially only a few of us, currently counting 5 of us who have already chimed in, because other members may join later. And I hope they do.As for the book choices, my suggestion would be to go in 3 stages:
1. each of us lists as many book titles as that person is interested to read or thinks that would be interesting for others as well, including those already read. This would create the pool from which anyone can read as many titles as s/he wishes; (Some titles might not end up being read, which is fine, but in this way we are aware what could potentially be worthy of reading now or later.)
2. by spring or so, which is usually the BTBA longlist deadline, each of us can suggest our favorites, whether 5 or more (but not more than 10) would depend on how many of us participate by that point; 3. and then the shortlist dynamic ranking can start.
What motivates my suggestion is that I see it more as an opportunity to learn about the newly translated literature than as the competition. I mentioned earlier that sometimes I find much more interesting the books from other members' reviews or suggested for awards than from the awarded or shortlisted books.
Just my two cents/pennies
I think I found, at least partly, what happened with Charco titles. In their 2020 catalogue, they list 2 separate publishing dates for Sagasti's A Musical Offering - UK: June 2020; US/Canada: 2021. I'm still mystified though why PW lists Fireflies for 2020 and can't find the "official" US release on Charco either.I've just looked at the Consortium distributor's general catalog (which apparently a number of independent presses use) and it turned out that PW was correct for the US official dates for Septology. Published in US by Transit - I-II April 2020, III-IV March 2021. They also list a few books by Fitzcaraldo in US release, but Transit took over Septology for this market.
https://www.cbsd.com/catalogs/
ETA: oops, sorry for a typo, I meant that PW was *not* correct about the US pub. year for Septology III-IV.
Since I am someone who has zero interest in most mainstream books, I'm only interested in participating if I can recommend the same type of odd books that I always recommend. And if we are using BTBA as some sort of model, they have more oddball books in their longlist than any other prize. Why? Because each judge is allowed to add one book to the longlist. Over the years I have learned to appreciate that feature.My general recommendation is that we not take ourselves too seriously. We aren't the BTBA, we are a small group of people who like fiction translated into English.
I would recommend that we have a deadline for people to recommend titles, maybe limiting it to 10 titles per person, and then set a second deadline for a shortlist of maybe 10 titles taken from the larger list, and later a winner.
One thing I complain about every single year is that the BTBA has zero interest in fostering a group of people that actually read the longlist or shortlist. Why? Because they don't give anyone who hasn't already read many of the titles sufficient time to actually read either the longlist or the shortlist. That would be easy for us to remedy, particularly for a shortlist of say 10 books. Give people 6-8 weeks to read them before a winner is selected.
I think it is inevitable that someone will find this group who REALLY wants a particular title to win and will pile in with all their friends so tilt the judging. So I think there needs to be some level of involvement in order to vote at the various levels, but I would hope that we keep the requirements low.
To me the purpose of the BTBA is to introduce under appreciated translations, not to have a winner, and my hope would be that we can continue that here. So I basically agree with Vesna on her recommendations.
Eligibility is a tough one. Before the PW database was introduced we had Chad's spreadsheet, and I used to drive him nuts with proposed changes, mostly additions, to the spreadsheet. PW seems to take the publisher's intentions at face value. For example, lots of December publications slide into the next year and are never updated. I recommend that if someone puts forth a book they recommend and someone else doesn't think it is eligible, how about if we allow the person who recommended the title to be the one who decides the eligibility?
If we do this I’m in. I like the idea of each of us nominating a number of books we have read then voting down to a longlist, then to a shortlist. Maybe we can nominate books from 2019-2020 published books since it sounds like PW makes mistakes or we designate someone to make that call and we all agree to abide by that person’s decision as to dates.I suggest we make a rule that one doesn’t have to read all the books to vote, but no one can vote for a book that they have not read.
Of the PW 2020 Translated fiction list I’ve only read 9, but I have collected from my bookshelves and stacked next to me 20 from that list. I have 24 if we include 3 more published in 2020 by Istros: Catherine the Great and the Small, The Fig Tree, The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse, and one more from Charco- Holiday Heart.What are the eligibility dates? Any fiction translated into English for the first time in calendar year 2020?
WndyJW wrote: "What are the eligibility dates? Any fiction translated into English for the first time in calendar year 2020?."Yes. Also, published in the US. They add: "Books published in the UK are eligible if they are distributed in the U.S. through normal means."
I looked at the catalogs of US independent publishers that are often longlisted for BTBA and discovered a few books I'd like to read, one of which I've been waiting for many years to get translated. Had it not been for this discussion, I don't think I would have known about it!
Right now, these are a few titles I'd be interested to read in addition to several from Paul's ranked list:
Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky, Unwitting Street (NYRB Classics)
Nathalie Léger, Exposition (US: Dorothy Project/UK: Les Fugitives)
Robert Perišić, No-Signal Area (Seven Stories)
Goran Petrović, At the Lucky Hand: aka The Sixty-Nine Drawers (Deep Vellum Books)
Judith Schalansky, An Inventory of Losses (New Directions)
Bae Suah, Untold Night and Day (US: Overlook Press/UK: Jonathan Cape)
Éric Vuillard, The War of the Poor (Other Press)
I love this idea- count me in! I’ll do some looking and be back with my list.
I bought Istros books from Barnes and Noble website, does that make them eligible? They aren’t on the PW list. Since we are doing this ourselves why can’t we include any 2020 translated book available to all through B&N, the evil empire, or local bookstores or libraries? Maybe even ebooks that can be purchased directly from publisher?How can we have a true Best Translated Book Award and disqualify books simply because they weren’t published and/or distributed in a specific country? We aren’t actually doing a BTBA inc. contest so let’s be anarchists and throw out their rules and make our own! No rules, no rules..who’s with me?!
Mod
Windy-The problem with not limiting the 'competition' to a particular country of publication is that since it is a translation into English from any other language, you can have VERY obscure books, VERY difficult to locate in, say, the US. I usually find myself an odd prize to follow. For several years I followed some, or even all, of the big Indian fiction awards, which always have a good sampling of translations. I sometime need to contact the publisher, or even the author, to get the book. Same with Banipal translations from Arabic and several African fiction awards. Another problem is that if a book is published over 5 years in various countries, when is it eligible?
I strongly recommend that we strive for inclusion but not chaos, and thus use the PW database for 2020 fiction as the basis.
Thanks, Hugh. Before I commit I should say I cannot buy more books this year. I was excited about this because my subscriptions to Open Letter, Two lines, all translated fiction, and Asymptote which has sent a few translated fiction titles, have given me a nice stack of translated fiction, and I bought a few Istros titles with my B&N gift card, so this was a good way to participate and read books I’ve been meaning to read since they arrived. If we select books I don’t have I might be able to get them after the holidays.
Here’s what I have if it helps to decide if there are enough of us with similar books:
The Regal Lemon Tree
Cars on Fire
The Teacher
Four by Four
The Clerk
Bluebeard's First Wife
Garden by the Sea
Where the Wild Ladies Are
Harmada
I is Another: Septology III-V
Natural History
The Adventures of China Iron
Dead Girls
Older Brother
The Distance Between Us
A Musical Offering
Istros books:
Catherine the Great and the Small
The Fig Tree
Billiards at the Hotel Dobray
The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse
I’ve read:
Echo on the Bay
That Time of Year
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
The Discomfort of Evening
Hurricane Season
Abigail
b, Book, and Me
Minor Detail
Tyll
Holiday Heart
My Devotion
I have, but don’t think they would make our Longlist:
Three Apples Fell from the Sky
A Hundred Million Years and a Day
Lascosas wrote: "Windy-I strongly recommend that we strive for inclusion but not chaos, and thus use the PW database for 2020 fiction as the basis."
I agree, though I think we can add a book or two if by an error or incompleteness it's not in the PW database but it's clearly in the publisher's catalog with the official release in 2020.
Wendy, while I am with you in spirit, unfortunately not with the practical side to it because there is a good reason why this award is restricted to the US publishers (and those from UK if they distribute their books to the US market). On average, only about 3% of all books published in the US are in translation. It's a shocking statistic so the BTBA is meant to increase the awareness and readership for translated literature in the US.
http://www.rochester.edu/College/tran...
Hopefully more UK independent publishers will find the ways for a better distribution of their translations in the US market, though luckily this group/forum provides the opportunity to discuss their books as well (International Booker, Republic of Consciousness, etc.).
I agree that while the PW database should be the presumed list of eligible titles, if someone wants to recommend a book that PW left off, there should be a mechanism for adding it. Personally, I've had no luck contacting PW for changes, so we will need to find a mechanism for doing that ourselves.
I appreciate the intent of BTBA and I agree we don’t want titles that are hard to find, but I’m unclear then what books are ineligible. I’m really only asking about the Istros, because Charco, a Scottish press, is on the PW list, but not Istros, which is also a UK publisher, available in the US through Amazon and B&N.
I am suggesting that we not worry about eligibility unless someone has a title they have read and want to recommend. At that point the person recommending it can argue for its eligibility.
That’s what I was hoping. It doesn’t make sense to nominate a book that is hard for everyone to get.So are we okay with 2020 Istros? If not, I’m taking my Istros and my Charco and my Open Letter and I am going home!
I started by reading down Paul's list of favorites and then realized that was stupid. If we are attempting to in some manner replicate BTBA, the emphasis at this early stage should be to read as many eligible books as possible. So using the PW database as my guide, and trying not to overlap too much with Paul, I commit to read the following by early March:Publishers: Archipelago, Dalkey, New Directions, New Vessel, NYRB and Open Letter.
Original language: Arabic, Chinese, Japanese.
I love your approach though I still combine with Paul's books, especially if top-ranked or with his label/shelf 'bernhardesque' :-) (love it!)I've been scouting different presses and, while I'll not read all their 2020 releases in translation (impossible for me!), I will try to sample one, or maybe 2 in a couple of cases, from these. Some of them are on Lascosa's list too:
Archipelago
Diálogos / Lavender Ink
Deep Vellum
Dorothy Project
Europa Editions
New Directions
New Vessel
NYRB Classics
Open Letter
Other Press
Restless Books
Seven Stories
From larger publishers:
Farrar, Straus & Giroux
Pantheon - Kehlmann's Tyll (already read it)
Riverhead
From the UK presses that are listed as 2020 releases on PW:
Charco Press - Sagasti's Fireflies (already read it and loved it!)
Fitzcarraldo Editions - (maybe) Meyer's Dark Satellites
Istros Books - Šarotar's Billiards at the Hotel Dobray
Several languages...
I’m going to read the books I have which are largely from Charco, Open Letter, Istros, with one from Europa, one Fitzcarraldo. New Directions often publishes the same titles as Fitzcarraldo so I should buy from ND, but I love Fitzcarraldo covers, I’ve even developed an affection for the well read look they achieve from shipping.
I love that you guys are picking up the BTBA slack. My reading has slowed from a crawl to almost nonexistant, but I'll happily read an eligible book or two a month as well.
You aren’t alone in that, Eric. Many people on Twitter and I’m real life have bemoaned their inability to focus or settle on a book.
So what is everyone reading? I just finished Eartheater, The War of the Poor, and At Night All Blood is Black. I am now reading A Musical Offering and The Memory Monster. I have My Devotion, Ordesa, and The Aosawa Murders in the next few days.
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I do think postponing the BTBA is a big shame - I wonder if it is also getting a bit overshadowed by the National Book Award? - as genuinely how are they going to judge 1000 books? I wonder if they will change the rules that books have to be formally entered at least.
And I am genuinely a bit miffed that I'd wasted time trying to produce a complete ranking of eligible books - I even have a spreadsheet set up for it!