2006 INDEPENDENT FOREIGN FICTION PRIZE: Shortlist

THE 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize shortlist is out, dominated by fiction from Eastern Europe (Croatia, Hungary and Poland), Norway and Morocco, and including 2002 Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertesz for a novel he wrote over two decades ago and 2004 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award winner Tahar Ben Jelloun. The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize honours fiction in translation. The shortlisted titles are as follows:

This Blinding Absence of Light (trans. from the French by Linda Coverdale) (2001; Penguin, 2005) / Tahar Ben Jelloun (Morocco)
Mercedes-Benz (trans. from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones) (2001; Serpent’s Tail, 2005) / Pawel Huelle (Poland)
Fatelessness (trans. from the Hungarian by Tim Wilkinson) (1975; Harvill, 2005) / Imre Kertesz (Hungary)
Out Stealing Horses (trans. from the Norwegian by Anne Born) (2003; Harvill Secker, 2005) / Per Petterson (Norway)
The Door (trans. from the Hungarian by Len Rix) (1987; Harvill Secker, 2005) / Magda Szabo (Hungary)
The Ministry of Pain (trans. from the Croation by Michael Henry Heim) (2004; Saqi, 2005) / Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia)

The winner will be announced on May 3, 2006