2016 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Finalists

As announced “earlier this morning at The Millions,”: these are the ten fiction finalists for this year’s Best Translated Book Award:

A General Theory of Oblivion by José Eduardo Agualusa, translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn (Angola, Archipelago Books)

Arvida by Samuel Archibald, translated from the French by Donald Winkler (Canada, Biblioasis)

The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante, translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein (Italy, Europa Editions)

The Physics of Sorrow by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel (Bulgaria, Open Letter)

Signs Preceding the End of the World by Yuri Herrera, translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman (Mexico, And Other Stories)

Moods by Yoel Hoffmann, translated from the Hebrew by Peter Cole (Israel, New Directions)

The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector, translated from the Portuguese by Katrina Dodson (Brazil, New Directions)

The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli, translated from the Spanish by Christina MacSweeney (Mexico, Coffee House Press)

War, So Much War by Mercè Rodoreda, translated from the Catalan by Maruxa Relaño and Martha Tennent (Spain, Open Letter)

Murder Most Serene by Gabrielle Wittkop, translated from the French by Louise Rogers Lalaurie (France, Wakefield Press)

As in years past, each of the winning authors and translators (for poetry and fiction), will receive $5,000 cash prizes thanks to the support of Amazon’s Literary Partnership program. Actually, after these are awarded, the BTBA will have given out $100,000 in prizes to international authors and their translators—not a bad accomplishment!

To celebrate this year’s Best Translated Book Awards, we will be hosting two separate events.

First up, on May 4th from 6:30-8:00pm, the official awards ceremony will take place at The Folly (92 W. Houston St., New York). The two winning titles will be revealed at 7pm sharp—both live in person AND at The Millions.

Then, one week later during BookExpo America, there will be a special celebration at 57th Street Books (1301 E. 57th St., Chicago) from 5:00-6:30pm. There will be some drinks and refreshments on hand, along with several BTBA judges. (Worth noting that this event will be immediately followed by Family History of Fear: Agata Tuszynska, Ron Balson, and Greg Archer. This is part of the Polish programming that’s going on during BEA, and something a lot of BTBA fans will likely be interested in.)

Finally, just to thank them publicly once again, here’s the list of all the wonderful judges for this year’s award: Amanda Bullock (Literary Arts, Portland), Heather Cleary, translator from the Spanish, co-founder of the Buenos Aires Review), Kevin Elliott (57th Street Books), Kate Garber (192 Books), Jason Grunebaum (translator from the Hindi, writer), Mark Haber (writer, Brazos Bookstore), Stacey Knecht (translator from Czech and Dutch), Amanda Nelson (Book Riot), and P.T. Smith (writer and reader).

Now you have sixteen days in which to argue about which title deserves to win . . . And for more information about all of these, I highly recommend checking out the Why This Book Should Win posts.