Banned Syrian novel makes prize longlist

2 March 2013

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 longlist is announced.

Four from Harvill Secker, including Laurent Binet's HHhH, make list.

Khaled Khalifa's In Praise of Hatred, banned in Syria, has made the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013. The book - published secretly in Damascus and banned 40 days later - was shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008. Set in and around 1980s' Aleppo, the story unpicks a life lived under dictatorship and loudly echoes the violence across the Middle East and the Arab world over the past two years. The translation into English by Leri Price is joined on the 16-strong longlist by Orhan Pamuk - who won the first Independent Foreign Fiction Prize in 1990 and has subsequently been shortlisted twice - and Ismail Kadare, who won the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005.

The longlist also features Diego Marani, one of Italy's leading contemporary authors, who was shortlisted for this Prize last year with New Finnish Grammar. Independent publishers are well represented with 11 different houses represented on the list. Harvill Secker also have a bumper year taking four of the slots, and finally Transworld with one. Translator Anne McLean appears twice for her work on The Sound of Things Falling, by Juan Gabriel Vasquez, and Dublinesque by Enrique Vila-Matas, on which she collaborated with Rosalind Harvey. The longlist features books translated from 13 different languages including Croatian, Norwegian, Hungarian and Afrikaans.

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize is awarded annually to the best work of contemporary fiction in translation. The Prize celebrates an exceptional work of fiction by a living author that has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom in 2012. Uniquely, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize acknowledges both the writer and the translator equally, recognising the importance of the translator in their ability to bridge the gap between languages and cultures.

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize ran previously between 1990 and 1995 and the Prize was revived with the support of Arts Council England in 2001. The £10,000 Prize money and associated costs are funded by Arts Council England who manage the Prize in partnership with Booktrust. The Prize is also supported by the Independent and Champagne Taittinger.

Previous winners of the Prize include Milan Kundera in 1991 for Immortality translated by Peter Kussi; W G Sebald and translator Anthea Bell in 2002 for Austerlitz; and Per Petterson and translator Anne Born in 2006 for Out Stealing Horses. The 2012 winner was Blooms of Darkness by the Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld, translated from the Hebrew by Jeffrey M Green.

A shortlist of six books will be announced on Thursday 11 April and the overall winner of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2013 will be announced at an awards ceremony in central London in May at the Royal Institute of British Architects.

Boyd Tonkin, Literary Editor of the Independent, comments:

Once again, the longlist for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize showcases the very best in global fiction. It also honours the vital art of translation. These 16 titles, as diverse in mood and style as in setting and culture, deliver a feast of the imagination to our doorstep. From Nobel and Man Booker International laureates to youthful prodigies, the chosen authors offer something for every reader. So, bon appetit - or tuck in!