Longlist unveiled for Women in Translation award

German, Polish, Croatian and Swedish titles are amongst those longlisted for the 2018 Warwick Prize for Women in Translation [full longlist below}.

The £1,000 prize was launched last year to "address the gender imbalance" in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership, and this year’s longlist includest the 2018 Man Booker Prize winner Flights by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft, and The Emperor of Portugalia by Selma Lagerlöf, translated from Swedish by Peter Graves.

The 2018 prize is being judged by Amanda Hopkinson, Boyd Tonkin and Susan Bassnett, who said: ““Ranging from South Korea to Argentina by way of Poland and Croatia, the long-list selections for this year’s prize have a truly global spread. Equally diverse are the forms of literature represented: from short stories to family sagas, interior journeys to topical fables, scorching satire to historical epic, with a welcome showing for creative non-fiction as well.

“It has been fascinating reading some of the really unusual books that cross genre boundaries and resist being pigeon-holed as fiction, history or memoir. The task facing translators has been immense and the success in English of some of these complex novels and collections of short stories testifies to the translators' skill. A cornucopia of shocks and delights to judge, and for many new readers to discover and enjoy."

The competition received a total of 53 eligible entries representing 22 languages and the longlist includes nine novels, three collections of short stories, two memoirs and one work of literary non-fiction.

The shortlist will be revealed early next month and the winner will be announced in late November.

Last year the inaugural prize was awarded to Memoirs of a Polar Bear (Portobello Books, 2017), written by Japanese-German writer Yoko Tawada and translated from German by Susan Bernofsky.

This year’s longlist in full:

Bang by Dorrit Willumsen, translated from Danish by Marina Allemano (Norvik Press, 2017)

Belladonna by Daša Drndić, translated from Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth (Maclehose Press, 2017)

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017)

Go Went Gone by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from German by Susan Bernofksy (Portobello Books, 2017)

Hair Everywhere by Tea Tulić, translated from Croatian by Coral Petkovich (Istros Books, 2017)

Land of Smoke by Sara Gallardo, translated from Spanish by Jessica Sequeira (Pushkin Press, 2018)

Letti Park by Judith Hermann, translated from German by Margot Bettauer Dembo (The Clerkenwell Press, 2018)

Maybe Esther by Katja Petrowskaja, translated from German by Shelley Frisch (4th Estate, 2018)

1947 by Elisabeth Åsbrink, translated from Swedish by Fiona Graham (Scribe Publications, 2017)

Of Dogs and Walls by Yuko Tsushima, translated from Japanese by Geraldine Harcourt (Penguin, 2018)

River by Esther Kinsky, translated from German by Iain Galbraith (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018)

The Emperor of Portugalia by Selma Lagerlöf, translated from Swedish by Peter Graves (Norvik Press, 2017)

The House with the Stained-Glass Window by Żanna Słoniowska, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Maclehose Press, 2017)

The White Book by Han Kang, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith (Portobello Books, 2017)

Vernon Subutex One by Virginie Despentes, translated from French by Frank Wynne (Maclehose Press, 2017)