Dubravka Ugresic nominated for Man Booker International Prize

Our own Dubravka Ugresic has made the “Judges’ List of Contenders” for the Man Booker International Prize! In case you were curious:

The Man Booker International Prize…highlights one writer’s continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage.

This will be the third time they’ve given the prize—Chinua Achebe won in 2007 and Ismail Kadaré in 2005. They give the winner £60,000 and also, if necessary, they give a translation prize of £15,000—I presume to translate the books that haven’t yet been translated, since the prize is for English writing or “work [that] is generally available in translation in the English language”. Here’s the entire Judges’ list:

• Peter Carey (Australia)
• Evan S. Connell (USA)
• Mahasweta Devi (India)
• E.L. Doctorow (USA)
• James Kelman (UK)
• Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru)
• Arnošt Lustig (Czechoslovakia)
• Alice Munro (Canada)
• V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India)
• Joyce Carol Oates (USA)
• Antonio Tabucchi (Italy)
• Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya)
• Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)
• Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia)

They’ll be announcing the winner sometime in May.

It’s some awfully stiff competition, but we think Dubravka can pull it off. Plus, she’s due to win one of these times.