Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize was inaugurated by British newspaper The Independent to honour fiction in translation in the United Kingdom. The award was first launched in 1990 and ran for five years before falling into abeyance. It was revived in 2001 with the support of Arts Council England. Entries (fiction or short stories) must be published in English translation in the UK in the year preceding the award and the author must be alive at the time that the translation is published.

Uniquely, the prize acknowledges both the winning novelist and translator, each being awarded £10,000.

2010 Shortlisted Titles& Winner

• Winner - Brodeck’s Report by Philippe Claudel (MacLehose Press), translated from the French by John Cullen

Other Shortlisted

• The Blind Side of the Heart by Julia Franck (Harvill Secker), translated from the German by Anthea Bell.
• Fists by Pietro Grossi (Pushkin Press), translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis.
• Broken Glass by Alain Mabanckou (Serpent’s Tail), translated from the French by Helen Stevenson.
• The Dark Side of Love by Rafik Schami (Arabia Books), translated from the German by Anthea Bell.
• Chowringhee by Sankar (Atlantic Books), translated from the Bengali by Arunava Sinha.

Other Longlisted:

The Coronation, Boris Akunin (Russian, trans: Andrew Bromfield) [Weidenfeld & Nicolson]

To Music, Ketil Bjørnstad (Norwegian, trans: Deborah Dawkin & Erik Skuggevik) [Maia Press]

The Madman of Freedom Square, Hassan Blasim (Arabic, trans: Jonathan Wright) [Comma Press]

Yalo, Elias Khoury (Arabic, trans: Humphrey Davies) [MacLehose Press]

The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell (French, trans: Charlotte Mandell) [Chatto & Windus]

Your Face Tomorrow, Volume 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell, Javier Marías (Spanish, trans: Margaret Julla Costa) [Chatto & Windus]

The Housekeeper And The Professor, Yoko Ogawa (Japanese, trans: Stephen Snyder) [Harvill Secker]

Thursday Night Widows, Claudia Piñeiro (Spanish, trans: Miranda France) [Bitter Lemon Press]

2009 Winner Evelio Rosero

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2009 has been awarded to Colombian writer Evelio Rosero for his novel, The Armiesby Evelio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish (Maclehose Press). Rosero is the first Colombian author to win the award. The £10,000 prize money is shared equally with his translator, Anne McLean, who picks up the award for the second time.

2009 Prize

Shortlist- Winner in May.| Award Tragic comment

Voice Overby Céline Curiol, translated by Sam Richard from the French
Beijing Comaby Ma Jian, translated by Flora Drew from the Chinese
The Siege by Ismail Kadare, translated by David Bellos from the Albanian
The Informers by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, translated by Anne McLean from the Spanish
Friendly Fire by A B Yehoshua, translated by Stuart Schoffman from the Hebrew

Longlist:

Sjón, The Blue Fox(translated by Victoria Cribb from the Icelandic)
Jose Eduardo Agualusa, My Father's Wives(translated by Daniel Hahn from the Portuguese)
Dag Solstad, Novel 11, Book 18 (translated by Sverre Lyngstad from the Norwegian)
Yoko Ogawa, The Diving Pool (translated by Stephen Snyder from the Japanese)
Eshkol Nevo, Homesick(translated by Sondra Silverston from the Hebrew)
Linn Ullmann, A Blessed Child(translated by Sarah Death from the Norwegian)
Thomas Glavinic, Night Work (translated by John Brownjohn from the German)
Gyorgy Dragoman, The White King(translated by Paul Olchvary from the Hungarian)
Alexander Ahndoril, The Director(translated by Sarah Death from the Swedish)
Sasa Stanisic, How The Soldier Repairs The Gramophone(translated by Anthea Bell from the German)

2008 Prize

Winner: Paul Verhaeghen, Omega Minor (translated by the author from the Dutch)

Other Shortlisted:
o Pawel Huelle, Castorp(translated by Antonia Lloyd Jones from the Polish)
o Daniel Kehlmann, Measuring the World (translated by Carol Brown Janeway from the German)
o Bengt Ohlsson, Gregorius (translated by Silvester Mazzarella from the Swedish)
o Lars Saabye Christensen, The Model(translated by Don Barlett from the Norwegian)
o Marlene van Niekerk, The Way of the Women (translated by Michiel Heyns from the Afrikaans)

Other longlisted

Alaa al Aswany, The Yacoubian Building(translated by Humphrey Davies from the Arabic)
Jenny Erpenbeck, The Book of Words (translated by Susan Bernofsky from the German)
Bi Feiyu, The Moon Opera (translated by Howard Goldblatt from the Chinese)
Ismail Kadare, Agamemnon's Daughter: A Novella and Stories(translated by David Bellos from the French)
Sayed Kashua, Let it be Morning: A Novel(translated by Miraim Shlesinger from the Hebrew)
Erwin Mortier, Shutterspeed(translated by Ina Rilke from the Dutch)
Alan Pauls, The Past(translated by Nick Caistor from the Spanish)
Peter Pist'anek, Rivers of Babylon (translated by Peter Petro from the Slovak)
Laura Restrepo, Delirium (translated by Natasha Wimmer from the Spanish)
Yasmina Traboulsi, Bahia Blues (translated by Polly McLean from the French)
Enrique Vilas-Matas, Montano(translated by Jonathan Dunne from the Spanish)

2007 Prize

Shortlist:

Winner - José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons, (Portuguese, trans. Daniel Hahn)
o Per Olov Enquist, The Story of Blanche and Marie, (Swedish, trans. Tiina Nunnally)
o Vangelis Hatziyannidis, Four Walls (Greek, trans. Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife)
o Javier Marías, Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream (Your Face Tomorrow Trilogy) (trans. Margaret Jull Costa)
o Eva Menasse, Vienna(German, trans. Anthea Bell)
o Dag Solstad, Shyness and Dignity (Norwegian, trans. Sverre Lyngstad)

2006 Prize

Winner: Per Petterson, Out Stealing Horses(Norwegian; Anne Born; Harvill Secker)

Other Shortlisted

Pawel Huelle, Mercedes-Benz(Polish; Antonia Lloyd-Jones; Serpent's Tail)
Tahar Ben Jelloun, This Blinding Absence of Light(French; Linda Coverdale; Penguin)
Imre Kertész, Fatelessness (Vintage International)(Hungarian; Tim Wilkinson; Harvill Secker)
Magda Szabó, The Door (Hungarian; Len Rix; Harvill Secker)
Dubravka Ugrešić, The Ministry of Pain (Croatian; Michael Henry Heim; Saqi)

Other longlisted

Tonino Benacquista, Someone Else(translated from the French by Adriana Hunter; Bitter Lemon)
Stefan Chwin, Death in Danzig (Polish; Philip Boehm; Secker & Warburg)
Philippe Claudel, Grey Souls(French; Adriana Hunter; Weidenfeld & Nicolson)
Marie Darrieussecq, White (French; Ian Monk; Faber)
Karen Duve, This is Not a Love Song (German; Anthea Bell; Bloomsbury)
David Grossman, Lovers and Strangers: Two Novellas (Hebrew; Jessica Cohen; Bloomsbury)
Judith Hermann, Nothing But Ghosts (German; Margot Bettauer Dembo; Fourth Estate)
Ellen Mattson, Snow(Swedish; Sarah Death; Jonathan Cape)
Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore(Japanese; Philip Gabriel; Vintage)
Dai Sijie, Mr Muo's Travelling Couch (French; Ina Rilke; Chatto & Windus)

2005

Winner: Frédéric Beigbeder, Windows on the World (French, trans. by Frank Wynne)

Other Shortlisted

Chico Buarque, Budapest, (Portuguese, trans. by Alison Entrekin)
Irina Denezhkina, Give Me (Songs for Lovers), (Russian, trans. by Andrew Bromfield)
Xiaolu Guo, Village of Stone, (Chinese, trans. by Cindy Carter)
Orhan Pamuk, Snow, (Turkish, trans. by Maureen Freely)
Elif Şafak, The Flea Palace, (Turkish, trans. by Muge Gocek)

2004

Winner: Javier Cercas, Soldiers of Salamis (Spanish, Anne McLean)

Other Shortlisted

Juan Marsé, Lizard Tails by (Translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor)
Elke Schmitter, Mrs Sartoris by (Translated from the German by Carol Brown Janeway)
Ricardo Piglia, Money to Burn (Translated from the Spanish by Amanda Hopkinson)
Luther Blissett, Q (Translated from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside)
Mahi Binebine, Welcome to Paradise (Translated from the French by Lulu Norman)

2003

Winner: Per Olov Enquist, The Visit of the Royal Physician (Swedish, Tiina Nunnally)

Other Shortlisted

Frédéric Beigbeder, £9.99 ( French, Adriana Hunter)
Peter Stephan Jungk, The Snowflake Constant (German, Michael Hofmann)
Mario Vargas Llosa, The Feast of the Goat (Spanish, Edith Grossman)
José Saramago, The Cave (Portuguese, Margaret Jull Costa)
José Carlos Somoza, The Athenian Murders (Spanish, Sonia Soto)

2002

W.G. Sebald (posthumously) Austerlitz (German, Anthea Bell)

1996 to 2001

Prize in abeyance.

1995

Gert Hofmann, The Film Explainer (German, Michael Hofmann)

1994

Bao Ninh, The Sorrow of War (Vietnamese, Phanh Thanh Hao)

1993

José Saramago, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (Spanish, Giovanni Pontiero)

1992

Simon Leys, The Death Of Napoleon (French, Patricia Clancy)

1991

Milan Kundera, Immortality (Czech, Peter Kussi)

1990

Orhan Pamuk, The White Castle (Turkish, Victoria Holbrook)

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