The Shadow Jury winner of

the 2013

Independent Foreign

Fiction Prize

is:

On Monday 20th of May, the IFFP winner will be announced. Shadowing the official Jury, were a group of likeminded individuals formed into a cohesive(ish) unit by Stu from Winstonsdad. This small group of book obsessives then set about to read the complete list with the aim of picking our own winner, along with the aforementioned Stu from Winston’s Dad, the group consists of Lisa from Anz LitLovers LitBlog, Tony from Tony’s Reading List, Mark from Eleutherophobia, and myself from The Parrish Lantern. The challenge completed it is now time for the announcement… So it is over to Tony from Tony’s Reading List:

>

> We started off in March with sixteen titles, the cream of the fiction in
translation published in the UK last year.  After a hard month of reading,
thinking, discussion and cursing, the list was cut down to six by the
official panel - which is where we parted ways.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Having chosen four of the same titles as the official panel, the Shadow
Panel (Stu, Lisa, Mark, Gary and myself) opted for two others to complete
the full half-dozen, and then set about deciding which was to take out the
prize...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Our road took us on a long journey through many times and lands.  We
spent a bizarre time in an ever-shifting, nineteenth-century German town,
working on translations and kissing the local girls.  We moved onto a dark
exploration of Communist-era Hungary (and an even darker examination of
human souls...).  We went for walks around the rainy city of Barcelona, and
then flew off to Dublin for a Bloomsday jaunt.  We witnessed an
extraordinary dinner party in Albania - and its consequences ten years on.
We followed a boy from the Siberian wilds on his trip to Helsinki and
watched as he encountered civilisation in all its forms.  We fled to Wales
(seeking some solitude) and shared a woman's house - but not her secrets...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Then we came back to earth with a bump.  There were discussions,
disagreements, grudging acceptance, and then a decision...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Our choice for the winner of the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize
is:
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas
>>>
>>> (translated by Rosalind Harvey and Anne McLean)
>>>
>>>
>>

>>>

>>>>

>
>>> Congratulations to the writer and translators - Dublinesque is a great
book, and it would be a worthy winner of the real prize.  So, can it do the
double?  We'll find out very soon...
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Tony

>

Thank you Tony, and I would like to take this moment to thank all of the Shadow jury for their contribution to this challenge, which due to certain factors within my home life meant my participation was not as full on as it could have been. Also thanks Stu once again for the invite & if you are on twitter you can follow the official announcement through our chairman @stujallen.

>>>

>>>

PS, I have just been interviewed on Riffle World Literature,

check here if interested

>>>

The Detour ~ Gerbrand Bakker

 

A woman arrives from the Netherlands and sets up home in a remote farm she rents from a local. She says her name is Emilie and that she is a lecturer researching the life on Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886). On arrival she inherits the responsibility for ten geese, but slowly one by one they disappear with the chief suspect being a fox. We learn that the reason she has left her homeland and come to this remote farm is that her life back home had become unbearable after she confessed to an affair with one of her students, which resulted in her loosing her post after it became common knowledge.

Back in the Netherlands her husband, who after a jealous outburst which involved accidently setting fire to her office, has formed a strange partnership with the police officer sent to arrest him and now they are both on her tail. Unaware of any of this Emilie meets a young man who appears to have injured himself whilst out walking his dog, he initially stays the night, but ends up staying a lot longer forming a strange relationship with Emilie.

~

It is very hard to describe what is happening in this book, for one thing very little does happen, meaning what you do reveal would need to be covered in spoiler alerts. More important is the realisation that what happens, very little of it is on the surface, it is as though you arrived in a mystery with only part of the facts and that for all your attempts to dig deeper – your only reward is hints, innuendo, and sly suggestion. Making this a book full of strange undercurrents of what ifs and whys, that like some dissonant background music constantly raises your awareness to this tales ambiguities, bringing with it a realisation that isn’t a tale or rural Wales with the protagonist living the good life in some primrose embroidered cottage.

Although this may be an escape to the country but from what and why? It also makes you conscious that despite what you are reading, there is so much left unsaid, so much that you are not being told. Making this a book that happens more within your head, than it does on the page, leaving you with nothing but those hints and innuendos as your means to interpret what happens on the page.

~

This is a strange quirky little book that skirts around issues of isolation and inner turmoil, that demurely screams it’s angst at life's tribulations. This is a quiet tragedy shot through with a dry humour that pierces all the angsts and obfuscation like the sun through the clouds on a welsh hillside.

~

Since reading this book which was on the International Foreign Fiction Prize longlist, it  made the cut and is now shortlisted which is wonderful, as it definitely deserves to be there, not just for the tale but also for David Colmer’s translation which made this book a beautiful and seamless read.

~~~~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~#~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gerbrand Bakker(Wiki)

International Foreign Fiction prize

Vintage / Penguin.com

Mother

Mother (1944 -2013)

Strange

You who gave me my words.

Today

Have left me with silence.

30 x 30 ~ National Poetry Month

The Parrish Lantern, has been promoting National Poetry Month almost since the blog was first conceived, giving me a wonderful excuse to use this moment to showcase all the collections featured over the years. Poetry from places as diverse as Japan, Chile, Ireland, Greece, Romania, Germany, and the USA, and also from the fifth century to the present day have been showcased on The Parrish Lantern and it’s twitter feed Pomesallsizes, demonstrating that whatever nation or point in time people have expressed themselves in poetry. Here are thirty three collections of poetry, representing one for each day of this month, with three extra to represent each year The Parrish Lantern has promoted National Poetry Month.

The Collections. 

Poetry Of The Second World War - Edited by Desmond Graham

 The poetry in this anthology highlights the utter abhorrence and sheer mundanity of conflict, whether on the frontline or the home front, Auschwitz or Hiroshima, the experience of war is apparent and central. From Osip Mandelshtam, writing in 1937 (a year before his death in Siberia), through Keith Douglas, killed in Normandy or Miklos Radnoti murdered on a forced march, this collection charts the course of the Second World War, through the voices of these poets.

~

The Departure - Chris Emery

Chris Emery drops you right into his poems/world, and once in you have very little chance to orientate yourself before being assaulted by the next image or poem; voices and fragments of lives hurtle past you leaving behind ghosts on the retina, neurons fired and blipping beyond the moment.

~

Bernard Spencer:Complete Poetry:Translations & Selected Prose. Edited by  Peter Robinson

This isn’t  just a collection of  Spencer’s Poetry, it also contains his translations of the above mentioned poets & a selection of his prose writing,  as such it opens up a window into this writers work, and in the process gives us an understanding of a poet that although almost forgotten was considered a central figure of the Cairo poets and a distinctive voice in 20th century English poetry.

~

Warriors - David Lloyd

This collection ranges far and wide drawing on characters from the past, whether historical or mythological and uses them to address issues that being timeless in nature are just as valid now. In this book Genghis Khan, Sitting Bull, and St Peter share space with characters from popular culture such as John Wayne and Tarzan,all raising their heads above the parapet and questioning everything from love, whether of family or Eros, to questions of politics, whether international or domestic.

~

Definitions - Octavian Paler

This a very introspective collection of poetry, but one that will have you smiling at that collection of words placed in that “best order” & then the awareness of a deeper thought process will seep into your mind – that this collection of beautiful, clever introspective poetry, is not merely one individual’s exploration of self, but that it relates to you, us, all of us.

~
School of Forgery - Jon Stone

beneath the artifice, beneath the games there is a candour that resonates, a passion that hooks you in past the word-bothering puzzles and clever facade, past the glitter-ball and the wizard of Oz contrivances, you find the poet, obsessed with language, and who has the ability to use it, not just as poetic gesture but with a depth, a strangeness and a beauty that beguiles.

~

The Art of Haiku: Its history through poems & paintings by Japanese masters - Stephen Addiss 

Stephen Addiss, one of the foremost experts on this art form traces the history of Japanese haiku, starting with the earlier poetic traditions from which it was born through to the twentieth century and its position as possibly one of the best known poetic forms in the world.

~

My Name on his Tongue: Poems - Laila Halaby

Laila Halaby was born in Lebanon to a Jordanian father and American mother, with her first collection of poetry, she uses a narrative style to explore what it means to be an outsider within your own culture, of trying to navigate between the two identities of Arab and American, and how this reflects on her as as women and as a writer.

~

Across the Land and the Sea {1964- 2001} W.G. Sebald

Published a decade after his death, this anthology pulls together poetry from various periods of his life. Stretching over 37 years it contains poems from two early collections Poemtrees and School Latin, these are followed by his later writing Across the Land and the Water and The Year Before Last ending with the appendix containing two poems Sebald wrote in English

~

Full Blood - John Siddique

Full Blood is John Siddique's fourth full-length collection of poems for adults. Erotic, physical, completely open and fully engaged with the moral urgency of life, Siddique tackles his themes robustly and yet with great sensitivity, constantly defining and reimagining what it is to be a man in today's world, living fully in the moment.

~

Post-War Japanese Poetry

After the destruction left by the Pacific war (1945), Japan’s poets were stunned, demoralised and left coming to terms with the shock of total defeat. The first poets to raise their heads in this bleak period, had to look hard at what they saw and along with their nation reinvent themselves

~

Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma - Órfhlaith Foyle

Red Riding Hood’s Dilemma, starts with a short poem of the same name, whose opening lines “Should I kill the wolf – or invite him to tea”, reflect (I think) a question running through this collection, we have poems of love & life cheaply spent, of death & of passions strong, here bodies ache, hurt, not in theory, the torment is real, as are the questions left unanswered.

~~
Amphetamine Heart - Liz Worth

These poems have that metallic taste of 5am, with the night fading to a tannic grit  on your teeth. This is the detritus of  good times, where hope is a commodity long since exchanged for a series of moments. This poetry is deeply personal, exploring the darkest corners of her psyche with that most powerful of magnifying tools – language, the words shining a path through the fragments of her life,

~

~The Making Of a Poem{A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms}Mark Strand & Eavan Boland

After the introduction, both editors state their case for poetry via their own personal experience, first as readers, discovering the art and on to the status they later achieved as poets in their own right, it’s this experience, insight and passion that stops this book being a dry academic exercise

~
Affirmation (Selected Poems 1986 - 2006) - Haris Vlavianos
Within these poems we are constantly aware of the surface of things/objects and, like in Sartre’s Nausea,  there’s an existential angst, as he probes the difficulty in describing  and explaining them. There is also a repeated reference to reality,  based on the dedication, this  refers to Wallace Stevens (Adagia) that “ The ultimate  value is reality?”

~

Love Poems - Erich Fried

This poetry comes across as deeply personal, proudly wearing it’s lovers badge, and yet it doesn’t become corny, it is touching yet doesn’t become saccharine, bighearted but doesn’t simper or whine, this is a poetry that reveals it’s heart as an elemental force, natural.

~

The Best British Poetry 2011 - Ed, Roddy Lumsden

Each poem within this stunning jewel of a book is accompanied by a note from the poet, giving a little detail of their lives and an explanation of why they wrote this particular poem, providing us, the reader, with added insight into the writing of each piece.

~

The Juno Charm - Nuala Ní Chonchúir

This is a wonderful collection of poetry that investigates what it is to be alive, to love, to hurt. Nuala conjures up charms and incantations and calls on artists as varied as Frida Kahlo, Marc Chagall & Soozy Roberts, writers such as Basho, Kafka  and Plath to craft a poetry that is so personal and intimate and yet resonates.

~

The Faber Book of 20Th Century German Poems ~ Ed' Michael Hofmann

 

Michael Hofmann puts forward his case for Germany’s inclusion on the table for best poets of the 20Th century, stating his claim that a nation with a roster of poets such as Rilke, Brecht, poets like Celan, Bobrowski, Müller & Trakl, others such as Grass, Enzensberger -  the placemat should  already be in situ, the setting card printed.

~
Of Gentle Wolves - Anthology Of Romanian Poetry - Ed' Martin Woodside.

These are poets that are not chained to the past, yet have used their links with it as the tools with which to craft their own language, some of them working within a nation whose paranoia & ideology admitted no alternate vision

~
What The Water Gave Me, Poems After Frida Kahlo. -Pascale Petit.

These poems pare away layers of flesh to get to the very heart of the artist, to capture that moment of transmutation, although in Kahlo’s instance transubstantiation would work – the change from a figure of pain ridden flesh, to an artist  whose life was her palette, her myth.

~
The Romantic Dogs ~ Roberto Bolano

This is the story of artists, writers & poets exiled from all that could be called home. Individuals caught in their own private quests, hunted by nightmares, always on the edge, and yet  the penultimate  poem is about love (possibly his wife) and it ends with these lovely words suffused with hope.

~

Giacomo Joyce - James Joyce

Giacomo Joyce is the link connecting A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, it pivots between the end of one and the beginning of the second. It is a love poem that is never recited

~

White Egrets - Derek Walcott

Reading these poems you soon realise another figure stalks the landscape, that with the passing of time, there’s loss, there’s death, whether this is of friends, or the death of love, or just unrequited love, stillborn with regret.

~

The Faber Book of 20 century Italian Poems - Edited Jamie McKendrick

James McKendrick’ s knowledge of Italian literature and culture is profound, as is his love and respect, this he wants to share with us, to give an impression of the depth and complexity of Italian poetry in the twentieth century.

~

The Rattle Bag - Edited Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes

This will nourish the heart, will sustain the intellect, will make one laugh, will release tears pent up by ones own pride and  the need to prove oneself strong. This anthology is made up of Cairns each one signposting an experience,a feeling, a memory, all amounting to a large Cairn – Hope.

~

Fully Empowered - Pablo Neruda

This is an outstanding volume of poetry by Pablo Neruda. The book was translated into English in 1975, and is a bilingual edition, with the Spanish originals and English versions on facing pages. It was first published in 1962 (Spanish) and Neruda considered it one of his favourites.

~

Crow, From the Life  and Songs of Crow - Ted Hughes

Crow sloughs off persona after persona, Crow is Bran, Crow is Arddu the dark one. He is Chronos the emasculator,  Oedipus , Mans advocate & Gods conscience. At one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and is always duped himself.

~

The Collected Love Poems ~ Brian Patten

This is a book full of beautiful images, of wide eyed wonder with the sheer beauty,terror of the collections subject matter.Fantastic creatures climb of the page to converse with the reader on items as mundane or as mythical as the readers credulity,or to curl up & slowly bleed to death whilst you shout your denials

~

Pomes All Sizes - Jack Kerouac

What is there not to love in this book, it is part of my life. It makes me smile, makes me feel, it just makes me ?

~

Unrecounted - W.G. Sebald and Jan Peter Tripp

A series of Micropoems (33)  by W.G. Sebald, each one is accompanied by a pair of eyes which are actually photo realistic lithographs created by Jan Peter Tripp. Some of the individuals featured are William Burroughs, Jorge Luis Borges, Rembrandt, Francis Bacon and Javier Marias

~

Soul of a Warrior - Clash of Weapons

The first thing you’ll notice about this book is the art work, which if you are anything like me, you’ll find yourself turning the pages and imbibing the images

~

The Penguin Book Of Irish poetry ~ Ed' Patrick Crotty

In the preface to this book it states that “This is the most comprehensive and confident anthology of Irish poetry yet

 

~~~

These collections range from the first time a poet’s words were heard through to the final summing of a writer’s life. In these poems the whole of humanity is painted from images of divine beauty to the deepest hell man is capable of. Highlighting that in whatever language it is written in poetry speaks a common tongue.

Independent Foreign Fiction ~ Shortlist 2013

On Thursday the 11th April the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 was announced, revealing the six books chosen by the official judges from the original list of sixteen titles. The Judges were, Jean Boase-Beier, Gabriel Josipovici, Elif Shafak, Boyd Tonkin, and Frank Wynne. This is a wonderful prize because it honours the best work of fiction by a living author, which has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom. Uniquely, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize gives the winning author and translator equal status: each receives £5,000. As Elif Shafak said of the IFFP…

In a world where a deeper cross-cultural understanding is a rarity and literature in translation is still not generating the interest it deserves, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize swims against the tide. Right from the beginning it was a beautiful challenge to be on the judging panel. Our shortlist reflects a mesmerizing diversity of styles, genres and languages around the globe. What is common in all is the mellifluousness of the writing and the translation together, a boundless imagination, an eloquent prose and the ability to reach out to people across boundaries-be it national, religious, class or sexual.

The six books then go through the mill once more before one rises to the top and this becomes the official IFFP 2013 winner. The six books now about to start this part of the journey are:

Official Shortlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Bundu by Chris Barnard, Trans Michiel Heyns (Alma Books)

Winstonsdad

Tony’s Reading list

The Parrish Lantern

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker, Trans David Colmer (Harvill Secker)

ANZ LitLovers

Winston’s Dad + Interview with Gerbrand Bakker

~~~

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas, Trans by Rosalind Harvey & Anne McLean (Harvill Secker)

Tony’s Reading List

Winston’s Dad

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare, Trans John Hodgson (Canongate)

Winston’s Dad

~~~~~

 

Traveller of the Century by Andrés Neuman, Trans Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia (Pushkin Press)

Parrish Lantern + Interview with Andrés Neuman

Winston’s Dad

~~~~~

Trieste by Daša Drndić, Trans Ellen Elias-Bursac (MacLehose Press)

Winston’s Dad

Tony’s Reading list

My involvement in this is due to Stu, who through the mystical power of the blogosphere gathered  a group of vaguely like-minded individuals to form the Shadow Jury,* this small group of book obsessives then set about to read the complete longlist with the aim of producing our own shortlist, along with the aforementioned Stu from Winston’s Dad, the group consists of Lisa from Anz LitLovers LitBlog, Tony from Tony’s Reading List, Mark from Eleutherophobia, and myself from The Parrish Lantern. Here’s our list……

Shadow Jury* Shortlist for the 2013 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Satantango by László Krasznahorkai, Trans George Szirtes (Tuskar Rock)

Winston’s Dad

The Parrish lantern

The Detour by Gerbrand Bakker, Trans David Colmer (Harvill Secker)

Tony’s Reading List

 

 

Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas, Trans by Rosalind Harvey & Anne McLean (Harvill Secker)

ANZ LitLovers

~~~~~~~

The Fall of the Stone City by Ismail Kadare, Trans John Hodgson (Canongate)

Winston’s Dad

~~~~~~~

Traveller of the Century by Andres Neuman, Trans Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia (Pushkin Press)

Tony’s Reading List

Winston’s Dad

The Last of the Vostyachs by Diego Marani, Trans Judith Landry (Dedalus Books)

Parrish Lantern

Winston’s Dad

Well statistically we appear to agree, as the official Jury and ours come together on four out of the six books and, to be honest, any of the books on either list are worth a read. Where we differ, and to me this a major difference, is in the omission of Satantango, which I thought such a great book (so much that on finishing it I bought another by this writer) that it must be a certainty, in fact I had that and Traveller of the Century as definites, although to be fair not all of us agreed. Another major difference was the inclusion of Bundu, although there is nothing wrong with this book, as I said in my post:

“ that it was a good old fashion tale of love and adventure. There is nothing wrong with it being that, except this is on The Independent Foreign Fiction prize longlist, meaning it needs to have something else to compete on a level playing field with the other contenders: it must have more depth, gravitas etc. Bundu does, although on one level it is a tale of love and adventure, and yet it is also a study of the characters, a motley gathering of the washed up and lonely, all of whom are seeking some resolution, some answers.”

This I still believe. I just believe that Satantango is the better book, it may be that it is more my kind of read - I don’t really know - all that I do know is that since reading it I have read several books including Bundu and it is László Krasznahorkai’s, book that has stayed with me, still haunts me - still has me trying to comprehend what this paradoxically simple tale is all about. As I stated before this is my opinion and not necessarily that of all in our little coterie. The other difference between theirs and ours, is ours has  The Last of the Vostyachs, a fantastic book that has had said of it that it would make a wonderful film, which it truly would.

Booktrust

Lust in Translation

* The Shadow Jury, were formed last year by Stu, from Winston’s Dad, and are occasionally seen wandering the hinterland of the blogosphere, where they are fugitives from their daily lives. If you can find them and have the right bartering aids ( Mine's a single malt Whisky) you too can hire them.