I’m a few days late reporting this, but the official shortlist of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize was announced:

  • Compass by Mathias Énard (translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell). 
  • A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman (translated from the Hebrew by Jessica Cohen). 
  • The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen (translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw). 
  • Mirror, Shoulder, Signal by Dorthe Nors (translated from the Danish by Misha Hoekstra). 
  • Judas by Amos Oz (translated from the Hebrew by Nicholas de Longe).
  • Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin (translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell). 

I’ve reviewed five of those; the links above will take you to the relevant posts.

I think this is an interesting shortlist, but most importantly from my point of view, it includes three of my favourites (Compass, The Unseen, and Fever Dream). I’d love to see one of those take the Prize. 

Normally, we on the shadow panel would have announced our shadow shortlist by now. However, for various reasons (not least that we’d read fewer of the books in advance of the longlist than was usual), we have decided to put our announcement forward to 4 May. How will it compare to the official shortlist? I can’t wait to find out…