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I know that the longlist for the 2016 BTBA has not even been announced, and I don't want to long-jump over it, but since we're almost through the first quarter of 2016, we've probably read some books that will be eligible for next year's prize. Feel free to start some speculation here.

One title that shoots to the top of the speculation list is Han Kang's The Vegetarian, a nominee for this year's Man Booker International, and I think quite likely for the BTBA 2017, and I'm okay with that.

I've also read The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome by Serge Brussolo, My Marriage by Jakob Wasserman, A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler, and Ladivine by Marie NDiaye. I think the two Modiano books that NYRB Classics put out are ineligible (at least, they are not on the spreadsheet yet).

Yes:
-The Vegetarian. Still a fantastic revelation that we've talked about a bit in conjunction with the MBI. I am hopeful it does well both because it deserves to but also because I want more of Han Kang's works published in the United States.
-My Marriage. My favorite book so far this year, My Marriage is Jakob Wassermann's fictional -- but apparently highly biographical -- account of a man's marriage courtship and marriage that turns out to be an absolute disaster. Not the happiest material, for sure, but it's what Wassmermann does with it that is so wonderful. I hope we have occasion to talk about this one a lot next year.

Maybe:
-Ladivine. I finished this one a week ago, and I thought it was lovely. The book did start to go downhill for me a bit in the second half, and perhaps the conclusion was a bit nice for my taste, but I am a fan of NDiaye and I'd not begrudge this showing up all over the place as the year goes on.

No:
-The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome. I was enjoying this one for some time (I love Gauvin's work as a translator), but I eventually got really tired of the premise: diving into dreams to bring back tangible artifacts that have taken the place of real art. It's not a bad book, and, to be honest, one that I could probably revisit to my benefit, but for now it sits outside my personal circle.
-A Whole Life: A Novel. Read this one for the MBI longlist, and boy was I disappointed. It has a lofty but familiar premise -- tracing a working man's hard life over the twentieth century -- and it does everything, including the writing, simply.

Ha, already.

YES
- Alvaro Enrigue - Sudden Death (Mexican Spanish, tr. Natasha Wimmer)
Fragmented po-mo historical fiction: allusive, clever, fun, and the translation of one character's language mistakes is ingenious and very funny. This should have been on the International Booker longlist. [ARC - already out in the US, published in the UK mid April]
- Josefine Klougart - One of Us Is Sleeping (Danish, tr. Martin Aitken)
Okay, not finished this just yet, but this is a prose poem with many stunning descriptions - perhaps a divider of opinion as some of the Scandinavian GR reviews weren't too fond, but apparently critics love her work. Aitken is another excellent translator. There are extracts on Asymptote & Brooklyn Rail which made me very interested in the book. Another of her books, On Darkness is being published in English (by Deep Vellum, this one is from Open Letter) towards the end of the year. [ARC - particularly grateful for this one - published July]


NO (which doesn't necessarily mean I disliked the book)
- Katarina Bivald - The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend (Swedish, tr. Alice Menzies)
Beach read/chick lit, not a BTBA sort of book, but does what it says on the tin.
- Jonas Jonasson - Hitman Anders and the Meaning of It All (Swedish, tr. Rachel Willson Broyles)
By the author of The Hundred Year Old Man Who Climbed Out of the Window..., so again not their sort of thing. Passes the time, though not as funny as his two previous books. [ARC - - published UK & US late April]
- Robert Seethaler - A Whole Life (German, tr. Charlotte Collins)
As per other thread, I liked this, but the writing doesn't quite fit the sensibility.

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Please feel free to post about individual books too, or ones you've heard about that sound interesting - you don't need to have read lots to join in! And as this is for books that were published in the US from Jan 2016 onwards, some of those having already been out in the UK or elsewhere for a year or more, it's not just about ARCs. Opinions from people who've read the books in languages other than English also very welcome.
Some of the eligible books are listed in the 2016 database , but that's by no means all of them at this point.

A quick scan of some books coming later in the year that I'll be reading (and would be even if they weren't contenders). Some of these may not be eligible if they've already been translated, but I think most of these should be eligible:

May:
-The Clouds, by Juan Jose Saer and translated by Hilary Vaughn Dobel

July:
-Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto and translated by Esther Allen. I've been waiting for this since they first announced it in, I think, 2013.

August:
-Bright Magic: Selected Stories, by Alfred Doblin and translated by Damion Searls

September:
-Girlfriends, Ghosts, and Other Stories, by Robert Walser and translated by Tom Whalen, Nicole Kongeter and Annette Wiesner
-The Last Wolf, by Laszlo Krasznahorkai and translated by George Szirtes
-Vampire in Love, by Enrique Vila-Matas and translated by Margaret Jull Costa

October:
-His Only Son: with Dona Berta, by Leopoldo Alas and translated by Margaret Jull Costa
-Iza's Ballad, by Magda Szabo and translated by George Szirtes. I am about done with The Door and loving it, so this is exciting.

November:
-Thus Bad Begins: A novel, by Javier Marias and translated by Margaret Jull Costa. I think this is already out is is just about to come out in the UK. I may just have to import this.
-Schlump, by Hans Herbert Grimm and translated by Jamie Bulloch.
-The Memoirs of a Polar Bear, by Yoko Tawada and translated by Susan Bernofsky

December:
-Ema the Captive, by Cesar Aira and translated by Chris Andrews. More Aira is always a great occasion for me, and I've been hearing about this particular book for several years.
-The Return of Munchausen, by Sizmund Krzhizhanovsky and translated by Joanne Turnbull. Definitely the title I'm most looking forward to this year. I have loved the three we've already gotten from Krzhizhanovsky, and I was checking listing daily to see when another would pop up.

I can't remember what the general reception was when it was released in the UK and up for the IFFP a year or two ago, but I got a copy of New Press's edition of Hubert Mingarelli's A Meal in Winter, which comes out in June or July here in the U.S. I've been reading it while on my morning jaunt, and, while not far yet (though should finish it in a day or two, it's so short), I think it's a pretty good book. I'm wondering if it will feel substantial given its length.

EDIT: Ah, I see that Tony didn't like it! Or, at least didn't feel it was worthy of the spot on the IFFP shortlist.

Have to say I rather agreed with Tony about A Meal in Winter. Although from that list I thought Ten and ... Butterflies in November (you'll be sick of me mentioning that one by now) were no better. Odd how books take an uneven amount of time to filter over the Atlantic.

I finished A Meal in Winter this weekend, and I think it is a case where a perfectly good book suffers from being listed for a prize like the IFFP where people hope to find world literature masterpieces, which I don't think is wrong since we get books like The Last Lover or Satantango that challenge constantly in theme and structure.

But not all books are written with that intent. Here we have an exploration of three German soldiers who have been broken down to the point they cannot see beyond the next few hours, and all of their energy is spent trying to make even just one moment in the next few hours give some modicum of pleasure, some slight release. How they have shut down their moral compass in order to accomplish this is quite interesting. I was also worried throughout about how the book would handle the ultimate decision, and even that surprised me by not only fitting but also by not letting readers either suffer some false indignation for the violence or feel some false sense of hope for a good act. Rather, the book kept to its exploration of what these men are navigating day in and day out.

I also thought the writing was part of the theme. Sam Jordan is an accomplished translator, and I felt the sentences were simple on the surface while acting as some kind of barrier to the torments ripping through these soldiers' psyche.

Anyway, not a book I'd longlist either, but to me not a book that deserves derision. I think it sets out to do something rather unique, and through structure and writing accomplishes what it set out to do.

I think this was a classic case of a prize longlisting prompting a few people to read a book which they would otherwise not have bothered with, and when they knew they probably wouldn't like it or else would set a very high bar for it. (Both Tony & I were exasperated by yet more WWII fiction IIRC.)
You read it because you were interested in it for itself - as it should be, and it's good you enjoyed it. It's interesting to hear about finding the structure effective; that sort of observation can end up blocked by exasperation when one doesn't think much of a book.

Trevor wrote: "I was also worried throughout about how the book would handle the ultimate decision, and even that surprised me by not only fitting but also by not letting readers either suffer some false indignation for the violence or feel some false sense of hope for a good act. "

If a book can take an emotionally charged situation and avoid either cynicism or sentimentality that's a successful book. I also agree with your thought that simplified direct language can be the most appropriate choice for this kind of story.

The bar to get me to read anything else about WWII Europe is so high, though. Or actually to read about any war. One of the reasons A General Theory of Oblivion worked so well for me is that it felt like a completely different perspective on wartime--an extreme example of the way there will always be pockets of relative calm where the violence passes over.

poingu wrote: "Trevor wrote: "I was also worried throughout about how the book would handle the ultimate decision, and even that surprised me by not only fitting but also by not letting readers either suffer some..."

Yes! Any WWII book starts so far behind the start line with me, that it'd have to be amazing just to be considered decent...

Trevor wrote: "I know that the longlist for the 2016 BTBA has not even been announced, and I don't want to long-jump over it, but since we're almost through the first quarter of 2016, we've probably read some boo..."

Seriously having problems working out what's eligible here (I'm often a bit behind with US publications). I will say NO to the Marías, though - not surprised it didn't make the MBIP grade.

Tony wrote: "Seriously having problems working out what's eligible here (I'm often a bit behind with US publications)."

Looking at the 3% database is usually a reasonable shortcut, then adding on stuff you'll have noticed on the likes of the Complete Review and other blogs. Even as you are you'll be more up to date with it than most people anywhere.

Just had a look at BookRiot's translation round ups for the last few months. Here are links to the books on ŷ������:

July
Before by by Carmen Boullosa (Deep Vellum Publishing, 120 pages). Spanish, Mexico.
In the Hope of Virgins by Jamal Naji (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 400 pages). Arabic,
Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra. (Penguin Books, 128 pages). Spanish, Chile. Published in the UK by Portobello.
Poetry:
The End of the Dark Era by Tseveendorjin Oidov (Phoneme Media, 168 pages). Mongolia.

June
Rituals of Restlessness by Yaghoub Yadali (Phoneme Media, 192 pages). Iran
The Extra by A. B. Yehoshua (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 256 pages). Hebrew.
Super Extra Grande by Yoss (Restless Books, 160 pages). Spanish, Cuba.
Poetry:
Proustiennes edited & abridged by Jean Frémon (Fence Books, 80 pages). France. Not sure how much original material this contains; a lot seems to be Proust quotes.

May
The Sky Over Lima by Juan Gómez Bárcena (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 288 pages). Spain. Published in the UK by Oneworld.
The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Muller (Metropolitan Books, 256 pages). German. Published in the UK by Portobello.
Infidels by Abdellah Taïa (Seven Stories Press, 144 pages). French, Morocco.
Poetry:
The Autobiography of a Goddess by Andal (Zubaan Books, 176 pages). Tamil.

April
Mount Pleasant by Patrice Nganang (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 384 pages). French, Cameroon.
Poetry:
Sebastian Dreaming by Georg Trakl. (Seagull Books: The German List, 72 pages). German, Austria.

March
Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure: A Tale That Begins with Fukushima by Hideo Furukawa (Columbia University Press, Series: Weatherhead Books on Asia, 160 pages). Japan.
Time of White Horses by Ibrahim Nasrallah (The American University in Cairo Press, 624 pages). Arabic,
Confessions by Rabee Jaber (New Directions, 224 pages). Arabic, Lebanon.

February
Sermon on the Fall of Rome by Jérôme Ferrari. (MacLehose Press, 187 pages). France.
The Collected Novellas of Stefan Zweig(Pushkin Press, 384 pages). German. Haven't checked if any of these were previously available in English in the US.
Poetry:
After Tomorrow the Days Disappear: Ghazals and Other Poems by Hasan Sijzi (Northwestern University Press, 144 pages). Persian.

January
This Should Be Written in the Present Tense by Helle Helle (Soft Skull Press, 208 pages). Denmark.
Oblivion by Sergei Lebedev (New Vessel Press, 292 pages). Russia.
The Gun by Fuminori Nakamura (Soho Crime, 208 pages). Japan.
Poetry:
Hippodrome by Miklavž Komelj (Zephyr Press, Series: Eastern European Poets Series, 208 pages). Slovenia.

Thanks to who originally compiled the lists.
Works with English translations published in the US before 2016 have been omitted.

The translated book I've heard more of my GR friends talking about than any other isn't on the thread yet! Heavyweight stuff, definitely "BTBA material".

Bottom's Dream by Arno Schmidt - a considerable undertaking in price as well as in every other way

Also discussed in the same circles, Fragments of Lichtenberg by Pierre Senges which sounds as if it may now be released in 2017, after various administrative delays.

The judges haven't been announced yet, have they? Must be soon.

^ What a rich and diverse list this is. I'd like to read quite a few of these as they become available.

I have been meaning to read Alejandro Zambra. I think I will read his previous books before the new one.

Thrilled to see Hasan Sijzi's 13thC ghazals treated to a translation. For a long time I thought I was the only one who knew Sijzi's poetry. His friend and contemporary Amir Khusrau is more widely known. It's aimed at a small niche of course but NWuni press means it's likely to get a better readership than if it had been published by a relatively unknown press.

Why I have a feeling that Jamal Naji's In the Hope of Virgins would be packed with a lot of political propaganda.

And I'd like to challenge myself with Arno Schmidt's monstrosity. But to hold it in my hands I need , or an e-book.

And aw shucks there's my name. I'm thrilled at this opportunity, though it's daunting and might kill me. Consequently, I won't really be able to indulge here as we would normally, but please keep it going!

Congratulations!

I had wondered when that might happen...

Thanks! I'll definitely keep talking here as much as I can. I always enjoyed M.A. Orthofer's commentary when he was a judge. I'm sure I cannot match his, but I'll do my best! And I hope we pick good books!

Yes - it will be interesting also to see if many of those mentioned by others on here (now and in future) get a look in.
A friend of a friend was a Booker judge a few years ago; I understand the mutual friend recommended some books but they didn't appear on the longlist.

Congratulations! How exciting, and what an honour.

Fantastic news!!!

That's awesome! Congratulations, Trevor! And good luck as well; that's a TON of books to wade through. As a side note, reading through a few of the Booker nominees recently has made me appreciate the BTBA award even more. Usually such quality novels. No pressure. Anyway, I'll drop you a line in March to let you know which books to pick. Thanks!

Ha, no pressure at all if you just let me know what you want on there, Eric!

Thanks also to Paul and Viv -- there are a lot of promising books eligible this year, and I'm excited to see your thoughts!

As I recall each judge gets to pick one book for the longlist irrespective of other's views - so I assume that will be a Forum pick?!

Would also be interested to hear a bit about the process as much as you can share, as I'm always fascinated how the judges cope with 450 eligible books.

Paul wrote: "Would also be interested to hear a bit about the process as much as you can share, as I'm always fascinated how the judges cope with 450 eligible books."

Yes, definitely. The info on the linked page saying that every book is considered by at least one judge was interesting - I had assumed last year that some books would only be read by one or two judges, who then persuaded some others to read the books they considered best. With nine judges - a huge team compared with a lot of awards - it makes it a lot more plausible for all those books to be read by someone.

Also seems from comments Michael of The Complete Review has made that the long- and short-listing at least is done in a very defined fashion. I recall something like each judge votes for their top 10 in order, they are scored 10 down to 1, and then votes tallied and top 16 make it plus 1 wildcard pick from each judge.

Whereas I think a lot of other awards eg Booker, the judges rather make it up each year how to do it.

The Booker of course insists on every judge reading every eligible book, which is in part why they have to restrict the eligibility so artificially. [I feel a rant coming on about how such a thorough process could lead to The Sellout making the longlist but I have made a vow of silence on that topic :-)]

Congratulations Trevor!

Congratulations, Trevor - so exciting!

Here are my longlist yes/no/maybes:


Yes

Seeing Red by Lina Meruane
One of my favorite reads this year. I blew through the book in a day and still think about the haunting story. So good.

The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers by Fouad Laroui
I loved this collection of short stories but see how they could be hit or miss. Laroui plays with language and can be a bit absurd which, while totally my thing, may annoy others. I still highly recommend it, though, and can't bring myself to put it with the maybes.

Maybe

The First Wife: A Tale of Polygamy by Paulina Chiziane
Interesting with a unique voice but missing the oomph that would pop it into the yes column.

One Hundred Twenty-One Days by Michèle Audin
I admire the translation and the thought that went into the original but it lost steam as it went along.

No

The Subsidiary by Matías Celedón
While the device of using stamps is fun the narrative skims along the surface. A lost opportunity.

The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
Too twee for me - I couldn't even finish it.

Murder in Dragon City by Ming Qin
Another dnf - an overly granular plot and no sense of setting or character (at least as far as I read).

Would you say Seeing Red was a memoir or a novel?

It would be interesting to hear opinions about the Audin from people with maths degrees. Once you take out the relative unusualness of the academic subject involved, I don't think the book is all that. But it might have another dimension, not simply that of being a novel about mathematicians, to someone who knows the subject to a high level.

Antonomasia wrote: "Would you say Seeing Red was a memoir or a novel?"

It's marketed as an autobiographical novel and it's hard to tell where truth ends and fiction begins. I don't know enough about the author to proclaim it one or the other but, at least for me, it feels like a novel that grew out of a seed of truth.

"But it might have another dimension, not simply that of being a novel about mathematicians, to someone who knows the subject to a high level."

True! And that person is not me, not by a long shot. ;)

Antonomasia wrote: "It would be interesting to hear opinions about the Audin from people with maths degrees.."
Kazen wrote: "True! And that person is not me, not by a long shot. ;)."

Guess it is me, albeit I finished my studies more than 25 years ago, and the book was on my radar for that very reason, but I hadn't been that taken by the reviews so was debating whether to read it. I'm also not actually that big an Oulipo fan: I love the concept of the books but usually find the execution soulless. A friend expresses the issue much better in this review /review/show...?)

Incidentally has the eligibility database been updated - last I looked it was from December 2015 and very out of date. Without that I always struggle as to what is actually eligible or not for the prize. E.g is Han Kang's Human Acts which, if it is, would as of now be my pick for a winner.

The post Trevor linked yesterday said they were planning to update it soon. 3% has been much quieter this year than the last couple; they must have been busy with other things.

Based on those I'm pretty confident are eligible, although I end up nominating three MBI books:

Yes:
The Vegetarian a worthy MBI winner, although Human Acts is even better

Ladivine
Mend the Living
Another two of the strongest books from the MBI longlist, albeit Mend the Living is in a different translation for BTBA

All 3 of the above I've put in the top 10 of my 2016 rankings so far, just above the 2016 BTBA winner

Maybe (in descending order):

Thus Bad Begins I disagree with TrevorTony on this, thought it was a return to form. Not his best but average Marias is still longlist worthy, but it is really necessary to include it

My Struggle: Book Five my favourite since Book 1 but I still expect Book 6 to eventually take either the MBI or BTBA as a "Lord of the Rings Oscar" acknowledgement of the whole series

Sudden Death I'd be surprised if this didn't make it and certainly a strikingly different novel, but one that for me did not quite live up to its ambition, or my, perhaps overinflated, expectations.

On the Edge similarly I expect it to be on the list and a powerful work but one that I felt went past realism into exaggerated realism, and, not a comment I often make on books, overstayed its welcome.

No:
A Whole Life Suffers from problem highlighted above for A Meal in Winter, fine but doesn't belong in exalted company

Don't disagree with me on the new Marías yet, Paul! That was Tony! I just got my ARC and haven't started it yet.

A couple of others I've read and not mentioned on the thread yet.

YES

Eve out of Her Ruins by Ananda Devi (tr. Jeffrey Zuckerman) (US: Deep Vellum; UK: Les Fugitives / CB Editions)
For my own preference there wasn't enough sense of place to balance out the emphasis on Issues, but it is stunning writing and a powerful story, and the right readers will love this. A strong shortlist candidate.

Moonstone: The Boy Who Never Was by Sjon (tr. Victoria Cribb) (US: FSG; UK: Sceptre)
More likely, IMO, to be an MBI longlister, it's that kind of thing. My favourite of Sjon's works translated to English. Powerful and short, like the Devi, though with stronger sense of time and place.


NO

One Hundred Twenty-One Days by Michele Audin (tr. Christiana Hills) (Deep Vellum)
Going to stick my neck out here and say that whilst this novella is fine, I don't see anything hugely special in it beyond the maths topic - a book that may be for a particularly niche crossover audience IMO. I love Perec and this was my first non-Perec Oulipian work: perhaps that meant I held it to too high a standard, but had hoped for something more spectacular.


A question for Trevor - if you know - are judges now not supposed to rate eligible books on ŷ������? They did for 2014 books eligible for the 2015 award, but I noticed they quite scrupulously didn't for the last lot, just logging books read.

Antonomasia wrote: "A question for Trevor - if you know - are judges now not supposed to rate eligible books on ŷ������? They did for 2014 books eligible for the 2015 award, but I noticed they quite scrupulously didn't for the last lot, just logging books read."

I haven't heard any instruction on this, so I don't know if it will become direction or not. I've backed off a bit, but I planned to keep logging books I got for review purposes. Like Orthofer, I plan to keep reviewing and have not been asked to do anything differently.

I'll certainly let people know anything we're allowed to let people know.

Trevor wrote: "Antonomasia wrote: "A question for Trevor - if you know - are judges now not supposed to rate eligible books on ŷ������? They did for 2014 books eligible for the 2015 award, but I noticed they qu..."

Orthofer reviewed and rated away and was even pretty open about which books he thought should go on the list. Indeed the comment I made about whether everyone reads every book was part prompted by his comments when When Tigers Are At Home (he rated A-) missed out and reading, perhaps incorrectly, between the lines I felt he was hinting that other judges hadn't read it due to the length.

I do know that not everyone reads every book, and Chad has been open about this when talking about the prize in general. Just on Facebook a day or two ago he responded to our own Tony Messenger, saying if a publisher does not submit a book, that book is still assigned to a judge who can then recommend it or not for further consideration. If the book is not recommended, everyone is off the hook. Though, of course, we're all entitled to read any we want to and make our own pleas.

I would have picked When Tigers Are at Home as well that year . . .

My comments on this are also a bit driven by BTBA people (Michael O in particular) being sniffy about the Booker and its restricted eligibility, which forces publishers to pick favourites, and in turn means it's difficult for the prize to announce which books were considered.

This is all because the Booker insists every judge reads every book. Which seems a better system. One only has to look at the discussion on the Booker sub-forum to see that many of the books on the longlist very much divide views from brilliant to shouldn't have been published: if one judge had read them they might easily have binned them and told others not to bother, but other judges clearly saw merits.

I guess though in part that's why the longlist of the BTBA is so long - I tend to treat the official longlist as the eligibility list and the shortlist as the real longlist.

After reading the Booker longlist, I decided to read current, modern, translations from Arabic to English. I defined 'current' as the 14 books on the latest BTBA database, both novels and poetry, and those books determined eligible for this year's Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize. To round things out, since two of the Banipal books were the third part of trilogies, I added the rest of the two trilogies, for a total of 30 novels and 3 books of poetry. Oh, according to the rules for the Banipal Prize, 'modern' means the book was published since 1967.

Why did I do this? Because I wanted to know what was being written in Arab countries, and by limiting the translations to those from Arabic, I hoped to weed out those authors who were writing for a Western audience by writing in a Western language (often French). Of course there are endless problems with the way I went about this. The largest one is that I'm not reading these in Arabic, and those chosen for translation are undoubtedly those someone thought were salable in English. This certainly skews what is translated. Second, just because someone writes in a Western language does not necessarily mean anything about the subject matter covered in the book. Third, I arbitrarily selected books by translation date. There is no reason to think that this randomness provides a representative cross section of books. But on the other hand, it seems as good a method of selecting a random cross section as any other.

I've now read the entire 33. The list is below. I have every intention of putting up short summaries of the 33...eventually.

What did I learn from this reading voyage?

That writing a novel or a poem can be a courageous stand against the corruption and violence of one's homeland. Authors who were imprisoned, tortured, exiled and who wrote about their experiences and those of fellow countryman and women. These were the hardest of the books to read. That a novel can be a way of making sense of a civil war that is senseless. A half dozen of these books either take place during the Lebanese civil war or center around young adults who were children during the war. And probably the lesson that most resonated with me following the reading of almost 10,000 pages is the wondrous gift an author can give to his or her readers to share an experience so different from the life and experience of the reader. To the small presses who published these works (particularly the new imprint Hoopoe from the venerable American University of Cairo Press), to the translators who carefully (lovingly) made the translations (and there wasn't a single dud translation in the entire bunch) and to the writers sharing what were usually brutally honest and heartfelt stories that communicate so much more than the news can ever do.

So I recommend that all ( 1 or 2) of you reading this go out and find something completely different to read for your next book. Something from a world unlike the one you live in. My recommendations from this list? Ibrahim al-Koni's trilogy, Muhammad Zafzaf's The Elusive Fox and Youssef Fadel's Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me. But frankly, the only books from this list that I recommend you avoid are the Ahlem Mosteghanemi trilogy and maybe Tayseer al-Sboul's Desert Sorrows.

Abdelilah Hamdouchi - Whitefly
Abdulaziz al-Mahmoud - The Holy Sail by Abdulaziz al-Mahmoud
Ahlem Mosteghanemi - 01 - The Bridges of Constantine
Ahlem Mosteghanemi - 02 - Chaos of the Senses
Ahlem Mosteghanemi - 03 - The Dust of Promises
Alaa Al Aswany - The Automobile Club of Egypt
Alawiya Sobh �� Maryam
Alexandra Chreiteh - Ali and his Russian Mother
Amir Tag Elsir - Ebola ��76
Amir Tag Elsir - Telepathy
Basma Abdel Aziz - The Queue
Bensalem Himmich - My Torturess
Elias Khoury - Broken Mirrors
Fadi Zaghmout - The Bride of Amman
Ghareeb Iskander �� Gilgamesh's Snake and Other Poems [poetry]
Ghassan Zaqtan �� Describing the Past
Hilal Chouman - Limbo Beirut
Hurma by Ali al-Muqri �� Hurma
Ibrahim al-Koni - 01 - New Waw
Ibrahim al-Koni - 02 - The Puppet
Ibrahim al-Koni - 03 - The Scarecrow
Ibrahim Essa - The Televangelist
Ibrahim Nasrallah - Time of White Horses
Iman Humaydan �� The Weight of Paradise
Mahmoud Saeed �� A Portal in Space
Muhammad Zafzaf �� The Elusive Fox
Rabee Jaber - Confessions
Reem Bassouiney - Mortal Designs
Sahar Mandou - 32
Samih al-Qasim - All Faces but Mine [poetry]
Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk
Tayseer al-Sboul - Desert Sorrows [poetry]
Youssef Fadel - Rare Blue Bird Flies with Me

Now, should I tackle the previous year's Saif Ghobash Banipal Prize eligible list of 28 novels? It is tempting.

Here are the first set of reviews...

Ali al-Muqri �� Hurma
The one book I've read where a character becomes a terrorist. Spoilers ahead...Our female narrator from a conservative Yemen family slowly sees her options diminish as she moves from a girl to teen and her family requires her to be conservatively dressed and comport herself appropriately. She is requires to shift schools to a religious school, wear increasingly conservative (heavy, tent like) burkas, and to avoid males. At first she rebels, but slowly she comes to believe in the appropriateness of all of this. She marries, and her zealot of a husband leads her further down a particular path towards terrorism.

The main problem with this book is that the trail followed by our narrator lacks sufficient justifications, emotional depth, believability. Towards the end it reads like a police report. Parts are obviously missing and any sense of a real person is lacking.

Amir Tag Elsir - Ebola ��76
Elsir's French Perfume was longlisted for the BTBA last year, and I thought it was a very successful, interesting novel. I vowed to read more of his works, and have just read this and the following book. The three have very different tones, paces and themes. What they have in common is a satirical view of life in the failing state of Sudan.

Our main character, Lewis Nawa, has little to recommend him. He likes to drink and whore. He's completely untrustworthy, and just bumbles through life having as a good a time as possible. As the book opens he travels to Kinshasa to attend the funeral of his latest love. What neither he nor anyone else yet understands is that what his love, and so many others, are dying of is Ebola, a highly infectious disease. Before he leaves to return to Sudan, he can't resist spending his last coins on a prostitute, who infects Lewis just before getting on the bus to return to Sudan. The virus, which is a hovering character in the book cheers for Lewis' infection and its spread. Lewis returns home and manages to infect a wide spectrum of people, setting the disease lose on an entirely new country. Thanks Lewis! But our Lewis manages to be one of the very rare people who survive. A wonky satirical vibe pervades what from anyone else would be a tragic tale.

Amir Tag Elsir �� Telepathy
The ultimate unreliable narrator. The kind where you don't learn until the last sentence that everything you thought you knew has been turned upside down. But is it believable? Not particularly. Our refined, rather superior novelist narrator is a successful intellectual with a full social life and a well established pattern for writing his novels. But then his latest novel comes to life and increasingly haunts him. The narrator's voice, his struggle to understand what is happening, the subtle change in narrative voice as his dilemma increases, all of this is skillfully handled (and translated). It is just the zinger on the last page I didn't care for.

Bensalem Himmich - My Torturess
A sophisticated and complex journey into the mind of our narrator who looks back at the extended period of time he spend in prison. We, and he, are never really sure why he has been imprisoned, and as time goes on the authorities seem to have also forgotten what he is supposed to have done. But throughout his stay he is subject to various tortures both physical and psychological. The narrator does not know what country he is in, or who controls the country, but a million not so subtle 'hints' let us know the author wants us to believe that the ultimate country controlling everyone, everything in the book is the United States. I think that is a legitimate basis for a book such as this. As a citizen of the US it is important that I be reminded continuously that my government has engaged, and continues to engage, in despicable inhumane activities supposedly to protect people like me. Point taken Mr. Himmich. The problem I had with the book is that we are either supposed to see our narrator as highly unreliable, which certain reduces the power of what the narrator unreliably maybe went through, or I am supposed to see the book as a somewhat accurate description of what a victim of my government suffered. If it is the later, then you lost me through much of the narrative. Control of the torture is by a woman torturer who uses sadism and sex to control our narrator and the other prisoners. Water-boarding? Yes, but also suffocating our narrator by placing her obese naked butt over his mouth. I know all of this includes a heavy dose of sarcasm directed towards the evil empire US, but the whole thing is too unhinged to adequately make its point.

Fadi Zaghmout - The Bride of Amman
Published by Signal 8 Press out of Hong Kong (who knew?) this is a somewhat sophisticated soap opera examining issues of marriage, sexuality and convention as faced by a group of young adults in contemporary Amman Jordan. Much of this could apply to any Western capitol in maybe the 1950s, so it in mostly the time frame of the book that feels original (21st c Jordan). Marrying to hide being gay (guy), career over marriage (gal), disobeying the wishes of conservative parents (everyone). Not a poorly written book, I just felt I'd read it my entire life, with variations too minor to mention.

Mahmoud Saeed �� A Portal in Space
With so many wars involving Iraq during the last 50 years, the inhuman devastation of the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988) is easy to forget. Which in itself is shocking to me. Battalions of Iranian youths, children really, being sent essentially unarmed to face only slightly better prepared youths on the Iraqi side. This book vividly returns the reader to that era, telling the story of a professional Iraqi family consisting of dad the architect, mom, teenage daughter and son about to graduate college. The war has recently begun, and all men must report to active duty upon graduation. Clueless and raised to obey authority, the son reports for duty and is immediately sent to war, where he goes missing. The remainder of the book is a detailed and grim look at what might have happened, and what the parents do in an attempt to find out what happened to their son. At moments it is surreal, and the story is anything but linear, but it is exquisitely told, and the various emotional turns feel appropriate.

Every week the Red Cross posts lists of soldiers and what happens to them. As the weeks and months go on, more and more people appear every week to look at the lists, and the father realizes that the crowd of families is a complete cross-section of all humanity in Iraq, a diversity unknown to the urban professional. Yet he is aware of the irony that the only place one finds this democracy of presence is in those scanning the list of dead. An excellent, thought provoking book.

Saud Alsanousi - The Bamboo Stalk
The book takes place in the Philippines and Kuwait, where the author was born. It is an off told story, though told from an unusual prospective. A young woman from the Philippines goes to Kuwait in order to earn money for her struggling family. She works for a wealthy old Kuwait family who treat her reasonably well, or at least by local standards. She falls in love with the only son and after becoming pregnant the family eventually forces her to return to the Philippines where a son is born, and the book shifts to this son for the remainder of the book. This child is repeatedly assured by his mom that his Kuwaiti father, who diligently sends money each month, will bring him back to Kuwait at some point in the future. The remainder of the book shifts between the two cultures, told from the prospective of this young man who is an outsider in each culture.

Few insights are given about Phillips culture or society, it is really just a setting for 'the other' against which his experiences in Kuwait can be described. We are presented with the insular and conservative world of Kuwait, and the huge gulf that exists between those who are citizens, and those who are not. Wealth, boredom, xenophobia, and sexism. The list is long, and our character, being an essential Other in this world lives primarily in that excluded world. An interesting view into a culture and society rarely discussed.

Muhammad Zafzaf �� The Elusive Fox
Excellent and distinctive little book from a prolific Moroccan writer who died in 2001. Our narrator is a young well educated (speaks several European languages) teacher who as the novel begins has just arrived in the port city of Essaouira in Morocco. This is the 1960s, and the city, and surrounding areas, are filled with hippies. There is almost no interior dialog or introspection by the narrator. Instead, we experience what he experiences with his wary approach to this alluring yet foreign world where inhibitions are bad, and drugs, sex and Hendrix rule. But our narrator can never really relax, and is well aware that while merchants are happy to earn money from the hippies, the larger culture is appalled by their behavior, and there is particular hostility aimed at Moroccans who are violating community norms by participating in this dissolute life style.

In the midst of this almost photo-realism the narrator shifts to...well, he becomes a fox, an elusive fox, and must ensure that no one sees his tail. Then after a few pages the narrative shifts back, but the fox continues to make appearances. No idea whatsoever what is up with that, but I liked it. It added a playfulness to the novel.

The book ends with an event that is shocking, but not surprising given what our narrator has experienced. One of several recent translations from Arabic published by Syracuse, and the only one where the translation copyright is taken by the publisher. Very bad, Syracuse.

Abdulaziz al-Mahmoud - The Holy Sail
A swashbuckling adventure story with the typical good adventurers battling evil ones. This is classic good guys versus the bad guys and as usual in this genre there is no gray area. The only original aspect of this particular story is that the good guys are the Arabs and the evil ones are the Christians. Really, really evil. The time is 1486, Columbus has scored the Americas for Spain, and Portugal wants some of the action. So the cities along the Red and Arabian seas are forced to confront not only their more local and accustomed enemies, but the barbarians from the West with their modern ships and guns. Only stealth and the will of Allah can overcome the barbarians from Portugal. Their are battle scenes, love interests and endless action. If you like this type of book, it isn't bad, but oh the stereotypes!

Alawiya Sobh �� Maryam
Yet another book about Lebanon's Civil War, this time with a woman, or actually women, narrators, and once again, the main characters live in Beirut, but their families have their roots in rural communities, coming to Beirut solely to improve their finances. Unlike the other Beirut books, this one, while centered in Beirut, looks back to the villages that ground and largely define the various families.

Maryam is a writer who wants to tell the story of her friends and their experiences, including their family members (largely female). The problem is that Maryam has disappeared, and with it people's stories. So others begin telling, recapturing, their stories, and the book consists of the friends, their stories and the stories of the families. In some ways the results are more layered and sophisticated than a simple narrative, but to me the whole thing is too contrived, too constructed. The stories lose some of their power.

I'm stacks deep into the BTBA reading, and I wanted to come out and take a look around here again.

I have what I think is a pretty solid top ten and I still have loads to read before we select the longlist (everyone does, and we're still a few months away). It's going to get very difficult, I see, when it comes to tossing some out to make room for another book I've loved. It has forced me to re-evaluate some books I read earlier this year, to the point where my top post above is a bit different now. I'd put My Marriage and Ladivine as Yes (though I don't know if both will make my top ten) and I'd not go with The Vegetarian. I'm not sure why! I just didn't like it nearly as much the second time around. I do have Human Acts, and I am anxious to get to it.

Happy to say that I agree with Paul about Thus Bad Begins and with Anto about Moonstone. I'm hopeful that I read many more great books, but I'd also be sad to lose one of those.

I've definitely encountered some pleasant surprises along the way with books I probably wouldn't have read but for judging. I'm currently really enjoying Augustin de Rojas's The Year 200, one of many strong sci-fi books we're making our way through. There are many that I am anxious to get to, but I'm trying to put in as many of the books I don't want to read up front as possible.

Good news: I'm not experiencing any fatigue yet. The list is so diverse -- and there are so many great books -- that it's been all pleasure so far.

For those looking for the list of eligible books, , though I'm sure it still has some holes in it.

Thanks for the fascinating update and interesting how views of books change as you read more.

So far this year I've only finished six eligible books. Nothing has been terrible, but nothing has struck me as overly great yet either. I've got a few more I'll probably attempt before April, but I may hold out until shortlist announcement and chip away at this year's translation crop then. Depends on how motivated I get. I think I need one or two great reads published this year to get my motor started. By this time last year, I'd read about ten 2016 eligible titles and really enjoyed 6 or so of them. I'd also read two or three that I thought were contenders. I feel pretty certain saying I've not read the eventual winner of the 2017 award. Anyway, this is what I've completed thus far (in no particular order) -

The Vegetarian (Han Kang/Deborah Smith) which I enjoyed while reading, but have been less impressed with as time's worn on. I'd rank this one as over-hyped.
Ladivine (Marie NDaiye/Jordan Stump) which is probably my favorite of this list.
Bardo or Not Bardo (Antoine Volodine/J.T. Mahany) Maybe the most fun on the list. Kinda zany.
Seeing Red (Lina Meruane/Megan McDowell) I know a few folks here appreciated this one. I did not. Definitely my least favorite so far.
Zama (Antonio Di Benedetto/Ester Allan). Again, over-hyped. I'm not sure I get the "classic" status attributed to this one.
I Saw Her Last Night (Drago Jancar/Michael Biggins). This was an entertaining enough read. I liked Jancar's The Tree With No Name from 2014. This one was a little more straightforward, probably to the detriment of my enjoyment.

I'm also midway through Gesell Dome (Guillermo Saccomanno/Andrea G. Labinger), and have been for a few months. I was enjoying it, and will get rolling on it again at some point but I'm not feeling it calling to me before I pick up another book and start reading that.

And finally, thanks for keeping us posted on the judging process Trevor. Good luck reading and ranking all those books!

The Pen translation longlist was announced yesterday - could be an early point to some selections



Confessions by Rabee Jaber
translated from the Arabic by Kareem James Abu-Zeid

The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Herta Muller
translated from the German by Philip Boehm

The Fox Was Ever the Hunter by Sjón
translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb

Between Life and Deathby Yoram Kaniuk
translated from the Hebrew by Barbara Harshav

One Hundred Twenty-One Days by Michèle Audin
translated from the French by Christiana Hills

Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap
translated from the German by Tess Lewis

En to tre - Justine by Iben Mondrup
translated from the Danish by Kerri A. Pierce

The Explosion Chronicles: A Novel by Yan Lianke
translated from the Chinese by Carlos Rojas

The Vegetarian by Han Kang
translated from the Korean by Deborah Smith

Limbo Beirut by Hilal Chouman
translated from the Arabic by Anna Ziajka Stanton

Alas, my library only has the two I've already read, Moonstone and The Vegetarian.

Both Han Kang's The Vegetarian and Stefan Hertmans' War & Turpentine among NYT's five best novels of 2016.

Here's hoping the judges have the new press QC Fiction on their radar. Even if (as some of you may know) I have reason to be slightly biased here, their first three books are all good, and the third one in particular, David Clerson's 'Brothers' (tr. Katia Grubisic), is the sort of book that could do very well in the BTBA.