Miles Franklin Shortlist 2014 & The Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize 2014

It is a busy week ahead for lovers of translated fiction with Thursday’s announcement by the judges of the winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Of course the winner will be announced here. But leading up to that event I’ll be posting my thoughts on the six books on the official shortlist, their chances and my winner from that list. As a member of the Shadow Jury for the Prize, Messenger’s Booker will be releasing the Shadow Jury’s official press release with our winner prior to the "official" award announcement, our winner was chosen from the original longlist of fifteen novels and our own shortlist of six (click here to see our shortlist), which differed greatly to the “official” shortlist.

Besides that I have reviews of the 2014 Best Translated Book Award longlisted “Red Grass” by Boris Vian and the shortlisted “Horses of God” by Mahi Binebine as well as “The Forbidden Kingdom” by Jan Jacob Slauerhoff. These will be posted over the coming week as well. So keep visiting back here for more and more fiction news and reviews.

Today’s update though – the announcement of the shortlist for the 2014 Miles Franklin Award. Australia’s pre-eminent literary award, the Miles Franklin was first awarded in 1957 and there have been some prominent winners over the years, last year’s winner Michelle De Kretser for “Questions of Travel” being a case in point, the book currently in the final ten books for the world’s richest literary Prize the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Notable names that have taken out the award include Patrick White, Thea Astley, Thomas Keneally, Peter Carey, Tim Winton, Ruth Park and David Malouf.

This year the final six novels competing for the award are:

Richard Flanagan – The Narrow Road to the Deep North

Fiona McFarlane – The Night Guest

Cory Taylor – My Beautiful Enemy

Tim Winton – Eyrie

Alexis Wright – The Swan Book

Evie Wyld – All The Birds, Singing

Three male and three female writers which is a great balance. The winner will be announced on 26 June 2014.

The 2014 Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize announced eight shortlisted novels instead of the usual six, “in recognition of the high quality of the year’s translations and the large number of entries (151).” The winner will be announced on 14 June 2014.

The Shortlist is:

Eugen Ruge “In Times of Fading Light” (translated by Anthea Bell)

Franz Fuhmann “The Jew Car” (translated by Isabel Fargo Cole)

Valerie Rouzeau “Talking Vrouz” (translated by David Homel)

Vladislav Khodasevich “Selected Poems” (translated by Peter Daniels)

Andrea Bajani “Every Promise” (translated by Alastair McEwen)

Jean Ferry “The Conductor and Other Tales” (translated by Edward Gauvn)

Tomasz Rozycki “Colonies” (translated by Mira Rosenthal)

A number of the works being poetry and short stories this is a blend of works on the one list, one that celebrates the craft of translation and to recognise its cultural importance. The Award is for a “book-length literary translation into English from any living European language.”