Found in Translation: Longlist for Best Translated Book of 2008

Three Percent, the website arm of Chad Post's seemingly one-man literary-translation crusade at the University of Rochester (see Heidi's Omni interview with him about his publishing arm, Open Letter, last month), has announced this year's 25-book longlist for their Best Translated Book of 2008 award:

• The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agulasa (Angola), translated by Daniel Hahn
• What Can I Do When Everything's On Fire by Antonio Lobo Antunes (Portugal), translated by Gregory Rabassa
• The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (France), translated by Alison Anderson
• Tranquility by Attila Bartis (Hungary), translated by Imre Goldstein
• 2666 by Roberto Bolaño (Chile/Mexico/Spain), translated by Natasha Wimmer
• Nazi Literature in the Americas by Roberto Bolaño (Chile/Mexico/Spain), translated by Chris Andrews
• Voice Over by Céline Curiol (France), translated by Sam Richard
• The Waitress Was New by Dominique Fabre (France), translated by Jordan Stump
• The Taker and Other Stories by Rubem Fonseca (Brazil), translated by Clifford Landers
• The Darkroom of Damocles by Willem Frederik Hermans (Holland), translated by Ina Rilke
• Homage to Czerny: Studies in Virtuoso Technique by Gert Jonke (Austria), translated by Jean Snook
• Metropole by Ferenc Karinthy (Hungary), translated by George Szirtes
• Detective Story by Imre Kertesz (Hungary), translated by Tim Wilkinson
• Yalo by Elias Khoury (Lebanon), translated from by Peter Theroux
• The Great Weaver from Kashmir by Halldór Laxness (Iceland), translated by Philip Roughton
• I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou (Greece), translated by Karen Emmerich
• The Enormity of the Tragedy by Quim Monzo (Spain), translated by Peter Bush
• Senselessness by Horacio Castellanos Moya (Honduras), translated by Katherine Silver
• The Lemoine Affair by Marcel Proust (France), translated by Charlotte Mandell
• Death with Interruptions by José Saramago (Portugal), translated by Margaret Jull Costa
• Unforgiving Years by Victor Serge (Russia/France), translated by Richard Greeman
• Camera by Jean-Philippe Toussaint (France), translated by Matthew Smith
• Khirbet Khizeh by S. Yizhar (Israel), translated from by Nicholas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck
• Bonsai by Alejandro Zambra (Chile), translated by Carolina De Robertis
• The Post-Office Girl by Stefan Zweig (Austria), translated by Joel Rotenberg

Which ones look good to me? I wishlisted Voice Over and Homage to Czerny (mainly because the PW reviews made them sound so good), and I already had Senselessness, Tranquility, and the two NYRB books, Unforgiving Years and The Post-Office Girl, high on my (endless) to-read pile. And I've read both Bolaños (and made them both Best of the Month picks). Michael Orthofer, proprietor of the Literary Saloon (whose advocacy of translated lit really makes it a two-man crusade), is one of the other judges, and he has a far better rundown than I could give, including reviews of 13 of the books. He also points out some geographical omissions, especially the surprising absence of anything from Asia, in a year when a remarkable number of novels from China (Beijing Coma, Wolf Totem, etc.) got pretty prominent review coverage. He loves 2666 even more than I do and amusingly comments on its prospects for winning the award: "(are there any doubts about which book will emerge top of the heap ? I mean, I can't commit my vote yet, since I haven't read all the titles and I'll have to revisit some I read a while back, but come on ...)."

Read more in Chad Post's Q&A on the award with the LA Times's Jacket Copy. They'll announce 10 finalists on January 27, and the winner on February 19. --Tom