Longlist for International Man Booker prize announced

The longlist for the International Man Booker prize has been announced with 13 authors and their 14 translators in contention for the £50,000 (€65,000) award.

It is the first time a longlist has been announced for the international version of the Man Booker which is now awarded annually on the basis of a single book.

Judges considered 155 books and the prize money will be divided between the author of the winning book and its translator.

The list includes books from 12 countries and nine languages while nominees include two Nobel Prize winners and two debut authors.

A General Theory of Oblivion - Angola

José Eduardo Agualusa

Translated by Daniel Hahn

Published by Harvill Secker

A wild patchwork of a novel that tells the story of Angola through Ludo, a woman who bricks herself into her apartment on the eve of Angolan independence.

The Story of the Lost Child - Italy

Elena Ferrante

Translated by Ann Goldstein

Published by Europa Editions UK

The fourth and final instalment of the Neapolitan Novels series, The Story of the Lost Child is the saga of the friendship between two women: brilliant, bookish Elena and fiery, uncontainable Lila.

The Vegetarian - South Korea

Han Kang

Translated by Deborah Smith

Published by Portobello Books

Yeong-hye and her husband are ordinary people. He is an office worker with moderate ambitions and mild manners; she is an uninspired but dutiful wife. The acceptable flatline of their marriage is interrupted when Yeong-hye, seeking a more ‘plant-like’ existence, commits a shocking act of subversion.

Mend the Living - France

Maylis de Kerangal

Translated by Jessica Moore

Published by Maclehose Press

Simon is in a coma and on life-support. Claire is desperately waiting for a heart transplant. As Simon’s parents face a heart-breaking decision, his and Claire’s lives will be fatefully joined.

Man Tiger - Indonesia

Eka Kurniawan

Translated by Labodalih Sembiring

Published by Verso Books

A wry, affecting tale set in a small town on the Indonesian coast, Man Tiger tells the story of two interlinked and tormented families, and of Margio, a young man ordinary in all particulars except that he conceals within himself a supernatural female white tiger.

The Four Books - China

Yan Lianke

Translated by Carlos Rojas

Published by Vintage, Chatto & Windus

In the ninety-ninth district of a sprawling labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician are undergoing Re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal and credentials. In charge of this process is the Child, who delights in draconian rules, monitoring behaviour and confiscating treasured books.

Tram 83 - DRC/Austria

Fiston Mwanza Mujila

Translated by Roland Glasser

Published by Jacaranda Books Art Music Ltd

In a war-torn African city-state tourists of all languages and nationalities converge with students, ex-pats and locals. They have only one desire: to make a fortune by exploiting the mineral wealth of the country, both mineral and human.

A Cup of Rage - Brazil

Raduan Nassar

Translated by Stefan Tobler

Published by Penguin Modern Classics

A pair of lovers - a young female journalist and an older man who owns an isolated farm in the Brazilian outback - spend the night together. The next day they proceed to destroy each other.

Ladivine - France

Marie NDiaye

Translated by Jordan Stump

Published by Maclehose Press

Clarisse Rivière’s life is shaped by a refusal to admit to her husband Richard and to her daughter Ladivine that her mother is a poor black housekeeper. Instead, weighed down by guilt, she pretends to be an orphan.

Death by Water - Japan

Kenzaburo Oe

Translated by Deborah Boliner Boem

Published by Atlantic Books

For the first time in his long life, Nobel laureate Kogito Choko is suffering from writer’s block. But his sister has in her possession an old and mysterious red trunk, the contents of which promise to unlock the many secrets of the father who disappeared from their lives decades before.

White Hunger - Finland

Aki Ollikainen

Translated by Emily Jeremiah and Fleur Jeremiah

Published by Peirene Press

1867: a year of devastating famine in Finland. Marja, a farmer’s wife from the north, sets off on foot through the snow with her two young children. Their goal: St Petersburg, where people say there is bread.

A Strangeness in my Mind - Turkey

Orhan Pamuk

Translated by Ekin Oklap

Published by Faber & Faber

In the four decades between 1969 and 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt and cooked rice to guarding a car park.

A Whole Life - Austria

Robert Seethaler

Translated by Charlotte Collins

Published by Pan Macmillan, Picador

Andreas lives his whole life in the Austrian Alps, where he arrives as a young boy taken in by a farming family. He is a man of very few words and so, when he falls in love with Marie, he doesn’t ask for her hand in marriage but instead has some of his friends light her name at dusk across the mountain.