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I’m really excited about this year’s list of finalists—it’s a pretty loaded list that includes works from eight different countries, ranging from Russia to Argentina to Djibouti. All ten books have a valid chance of winning the award depending on what criteria you want to emphasize. (Click here to see all the various arguments for why each of these books should win.)

We’ll be posting more commentary about this over the next few weeks, building up to the announcement of the winning title on May 3rd at 5:30pm the PEN World Voices/CLMP Fest taking place at the Washington Mews in New York.

Also, the finalists for poetry are going to be announced on the Poetry Foundation blog, and will be reproduced here as soon as that goes live.

The 2013 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Finalist

translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Open Letter Books; Argentina)

translated from the French by Alyson Waters (Archipelago Books; France)

translated from the Persian by Tom Patterdale (Melville House; Iran)

translated from the Hungarian by George Szirtes (New Directions; Hungary)

translated from the French by Lorin Stein (Dalkey Archive Press; France)

translated from the Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz (New Directions; Brazil)

translated from the German by Philip Boehm (Metropolitan Books; Romania)

translated from the Russian by Marian Schwartz (Open Letter Books; Russia)

translated from the French by David Ball and Nicole Ball (Indiana University Press; Djibouti)

translated from the German by Donal McLaughlin (Seagull Books; Switzerland)

Special thanks needs to go out to all of our fine judges: Monica Carter, Salonica; Tess Doering Lewis, translator and critic; Scott Esposito, Conversational Reading and Center for the Art of Translation; Susan Harris, Words Without Borders; Bill Martin, translator; Bill Marx, Arts Fuse; Michael Orthofer, Complete Review; Stephen Sparks, Green Apple Books; and Jenn Witte, Skylight Books.

And we want to thank Amazon.com once again for underwriting the award and providing $25,000 allowing us to give $5,000 cash prizes to both winning authors and translators, along with providing a small honorarium for the judges.