A shortlist for the International Booker Prize, honoring the "best work of international fiction translated into English, selected from entries published in the U.K. or Ireland," has been released. The winning book will be named May 23, with the £50,000 (about $62,150) prize money, divided equally between the author and translator. In addition, the shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500 (about $3,105). This year's shortlisted titles are:
Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey
Standing Heavy by GauZ', translated by Frank Wynne
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel
The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Condé, translated by Richard Philcox
Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim
Boulder by Eva Baltasar, translated by Julia Sanches
Chair of the judges Leïla Slimani commented: "I think it's a very cool, very sexy list. We wanted each book to feel like an astonishment and to stand on its own. These books are all bold, subversive, nicely perverse. There is something sneaky about a lot of them. I also feel that these are sensual books, where the question of the body is important. What is it like to have a body? How do you write about the experience of the body? These are not abstract or theoretical books, but on the contrary, very grounded books, about people, places, moments. All these authors also question the narrative and what it means to write a novel today."