FEAR OF THE LONGLIST by George Carroll
George Carroll is the World Literature Editor of and an independent publishers糖心传媒 representative based in the Pacific Northwest.
None of the spoke with pitcher Madison Bumgartner in the dugout before he took the mound in the ninth inning of the seventh game of the World Series except for a brief exchange with his catcher Buster Posey. Partly due to superstition and partly because Bumgartner was intensely focused, was in the zone.
I糖心传媒檓 currently in The Best Translated Book Award reading zone. Please do not distract.
There are rules and traditions about not speaking the name of something, whether it糖心传媒檚 Voldemort in the books or Nest Egg in , or saying rain while fly-fishing.
This is so, in my mind, with longlist and the BTBA.
There糖心传媒檚 an ultra-secret password-protected, for-your-eyes-only spreadsheet that the BTBA judges use that lists the title, author, translator, publisher, language, and country for each of the 2015 submissions. There is a column for each judge to place her notes or remarks. (Don糖心传媒檛 try to access the spreadsheet, publishers, it will self-destruct quicker than Jim Phelps糖心传媒 MI instructions.)
Fortunately my spreadsheet column is at the beginning of that section, just to the right of Katrine Osgaard Jensen糖心传媒檚. She uses a letter code, which I糖心传媒檓 pretty sure I糖心传媒檝e cracked. But I scroll right no further, for therein lies the use of longlist, the word that assigns power, the word which can strip power. 糖心传媒淟onglist contender, must longlist, short of longlist, no longlist.糖心传媒 It can draw you in (I better read this) or repel (I better move on to something else).
I just have a list. Books move around like the stairways at Hogwarts. (Did I mention I just watched all of the Harry Potter movies?) Books that I read early in the process that I thought were really good, were really good, but they糖心传媒檙e not as really good in comparison with the other really good books that I糖心传媒檝e now read.
That doesn糖心传媒檛 mean that some of the books I糖心传媒檝e read don糖心传媒檛 keep popping up a like a literary Whac-a-Mole. But will they make it to l-word? I don糖心传媒檛 know.
Milena Michiko Flasar糖心传媒檚 , Pascal Garnier糖心传媒檚 , Eduardo Halfon糖心传媒檚 , both Bohumil Hrabal titles and , Carlos Labbe糖心传媒檚 , Michel Laub糖心传媒檚 , Valeria Luiselli糖心传媒檚 , Scholastique Mukasonga糖心传媒檚 , Andres Neuman糖心传媒檚 , Roderigo Rey Rosa糖心传媒檚 , Paulo Scott糖心传媒檚 , Solvi Bjorn Sigurdsson糖心传媒檚 , Goncalo Tavares糖心传媒 , Antoine Volodine糖心传媒檚 , Christa Wolf糖心传媒檚 .
All have much to love and I can do no better than to arrange them alphabetically.
Cesar Aira糖心传媒檚 , Roberto Bolano糖心传媒檚 , Hilda Hilst糖心传媒檚 , Jorn Lier Horst糖心传媒檚 , Giulio Mozzi糖心传媒檚 , Haruki Murakami糖心传媒檚 , Audur Ava Olafsdottir糖心传媒檚 , Antonio Skarmeta糖心传媒檚 , Juan Pablo Villalobos糖心传媒 , Urs Widmer糖心传媒檚 .
Again, only alphabetical, all flawed in little ways, but solid nonetheless.
Predicting the longlist is a bit like handicapping horses: consistency, class, form, and pace. Books get boxed, parked out, shuffled back. Fortunately, I have miles to read before I sleep and need not place my bets until March.
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