George Carroll听is a former bookseller and a West Coast representative for numerous publishers of translated literature. He is currently the curator of听.

听by Sj贸n, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb (Iceland, FSG)

Sigurj贸n Birgir Sigur冒sson (aka Sj贸n) and L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai are the Ronaldo and Messi of translated literature. It鈥檚 fortunate that and don鈥檛 qualify in the same Best Translated Book Award year. Sj贸n should win the award this year. Laszlo should three-peat the award in 2020.

By this post, I鈥檓 not trying to convince the other jurors to advance CoDex 1962 to the shortlist or why this book should trump theirs. But, I swear, this is the best book of the year and I read a lot of books.

CoDex 1962 is the most ambitious submission for this year鈥檚 award. There are those who could argue Karl Ove Knausg氓rd鈥檚 My Struggle: Book Six, at over twice its size, could hold that claim. But if one subtracts diapers and crying and toddler meal prep, that drops significantly. Or Uwe Johnson鈥檚 1668-page Anniversaries, but because of the new material percentage and/or crap I don鈥檛 understand, it doesn鈥檛 qualify for the award. Which is good because reading another 1600+ pages would make my fucking head explode.

CoDex 1962 is three novels: 鈥渁 love story,鈥� 鈥渁 crime story,鈥� and 鈥渁 science fiction story.鈥� Plots flip over plots鈥攎yth and history and science and landscape and folklore. I would sound really stupid summarizing the plot, but basically it starts off in Nazi Germany and ends up at an Iceland biotech company. There are a shitload of asides.

Icelandic saga references鈥攖here are many, at least I think there are鈥攚ent over my head at times, similar to the Continental Philosophy call-outs in Laurent Binet鈥檚 The Seventh Function of Language (Binet texted me that they went over his head at times as well).

Stylistically, The Guardian, did a pretty interesting blurb: 鈥淎 clay baby becomes the narrator of this chaotic extravaganza in which Bosch meets Chagall, with touches of Tarantino.鈥� Not sure I agree, not even sure I understand that, but there you have it.

I鈥檓 a sucker for 脕lex Pina鈥檚 La casa de papel. Just when I thought I had figured out the end game, when I was confident that I was tracking the story arc, it shot off in a different direction. Sj贸n set me up the same way. It鈥檚 a tricky book, dodging and weaving. To pull that off over its massive length鈥攁nd to keep you wanting, really wanting鈥攊s damn impressive

CoDex 1962 should win BTBA 2019 because it鈥檚 playful and serious, daunting and accessible. Sj贸n is a master storyteller. And stories are what make life interesting, right?

Victoria Cribb鈥檚 translation is aces, just a joy. Sj贸n can鈥檛 be an easy writer, and this couldn鈥檛 have been an easy book, to translate.

Cribb: Sj贸n :: Mulzet: Krasznahorkai.

A gratuitous sidenote:

A couple of years ago, I met Sj贸n for coffee in Reykjavik, the result of a sweet Icelandair London / Seattle layover. He was on his way to a meeting in which Reykjavik was going to endorse Seattle鈥檚 nomination to be named a City of Literature. He told me his only regret when he visited Seattle was that he didn鈥檛 have room in his carry-on for a Seattle Sounders jersey for his son. My fanboy level ratcheted up to 11.

Just for fun, check out the 鈥淛ohnny Triumph鈥� vocals on The Sugarcubes single Luftgitar, Bj枚rk on backup.)

Which is really fun! I didn’t have to stress out about writing the press release this year, nor did I have any of the guilt from leading people on. I also got to be surprised right along with the rest of you鈥攚hich really does add a level of excitement and anticipation. (It’s been ages since I refreshed a webpage over and over and over again like I did yesterday morning.)

And, in a bit of an unusual twist, I get to write my own hot take about which books made it and which were shunned!

The Poetry List

I don’t have a lot to say about this except that I actually have read three of the titles already, and am putting my money on 听by Kim Hyesoon, translated from the Korean by Don Mee Choi.

Don Mee Choi is, hands down, one of the best Korean translators of all time. And Kim Hyesoon is incredibly interesting鈥攅xperimental in ways that are stimulating and exciting, without being too inaccessible. Doing poetry things that are very poetic and good.

She’s been longlisted before (for Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream, which was published by Action Books, the press that did all of her collections until New Directions got this one), and I think this is her time.

Besides, betting against New Directions is like betting against Duke and Coach K鈥攏ot advisable! New Directions has won the BTBA four times in the past, including twice for poetry. JUGGERNAUT!

The Shunned

This is the moment when armchair analysts realize a) how many translations are actually eligible (511 according to the Translation Database, although it’s likely that not all of these reached the judges despite everyone’s best efforts to evaluate听every single book) and b) how few of these titles they’ve actually read.

It’s really easy to build a list of 25 fiction titles out of the 50-80 books that you’ve read in a year; it’s easier to imagine reading an additional 100 translations and replacing 10+ titles from your projected longlist with books that have otherwise escaped your notice.

One quick note:听听from Uwe Johnson wasn’t eligible since it was previous published and we’re as hard core as Swedish death metal about not allowing revised or “first complete translations” to make their way on here. It’s a crazy slippery slope, especially when it comes to poetry. So in the end, a firm gate is probably the best gate, even if it means that a truly amazing feat of translation gets left off. (I assume it听is听eligible for the PEN America Award, National Translation Award, and National Book Award for Translation though, so it’s not like it won’t have its chances!)

That one book aside, here are five that I thought would likely make it . . . but didn’t:

by Jean-Patrick Manchette, although I can see how this would get passed over since it was incomplete at the time of Manchette’s passing. Still, it’s really good. And how exactly did NYRB get shut out? That’s pretty wild, although maybe not as wild as . . .

Archipelago having no books on the list! I keep checking and triple-checking this (I am spelling “archipelago” right in the search bar, right? Right! But maybe try again? Can the search bar sometimes just not work?), especially for听.听Given the sheer size and cultural impact of this six-book cycle, it seemed deserving of a longlist nod . . . But whatever. Some people are not into the Knausgaard and his long-winded navel gazing. (Although personally, Book Six was my favorite.)

How about 听by Noemi Lefebvre? I feel like this was on everyone’s favorite books of 2018 list early in the process. Seemed like a lock to me. It’s only a matter of time before Transit starts cleaning up in all of these awards.

There are other presses I thought would have at least one title on there鈥攍ike New Vessel鈥攂ut the final book that I was hoping would make it, but didn’t, is 听by Catherine Leroux. I’ve become a Leroux fanatic over the past few months, so I’ve got a bit of recency bias going on, but still.

The Surprises

There are a number of titles on here that I either have never heard of, or only know because I typed them into the Translation Database at some point in time. Specifically, here are three that I’m excited made it, since it’ll force me to go learn about some new authors:

听by听In Koli Jean Bofane, translated from the French by听Marjolijn de Jager, which I think I gave to a student to review, but either that never happened, or the review was unremarkable. This does seem to fit in with some of the nonfiction I’ve been reading this month.

听by听Frank茅tienne, translated from the French by听Asselin Charles, which is maybe a controversial choice? At least according to the Twitter? I could do without that cover, but it sounds more or less up my alley, so I’m going to reserve judgement.

The most surprising for me has to be 听by听Aurora C谩ceres, translated from the Spanish by听Laura Kanost. This is the听only听title in the Translation Database from Stockcero (which might be an error?), and is the first Peruvian book to make a Best Translated Book Award longlist. I’d be shocked to find out that more than eight of you have read this book.

But that’s what’s great about the BTBAs! The expected titles don’t always get the nominations (see: every Haruki Murakami ever) and there are always a few surprises, which, in the end, turn round to be pretty damn good books鈥攋ust ones that flew under the radar of Translation Twitter. I love that!

The Shortlist

Over the next month, there will be 35 “Why This Book Should Win” articles presenting all of these titles to general readers. We’ll all get to know these titles, what makes them special, why they were selected for this longlist. And in the end, as mid-May approaches, we can all make very qualified, rational prognostications about which 10 fiction titles and 5 poetry collections will make it to the next round.

That sounds great, but is also TOTALLY BORING. Let’s speculate now, with next to no knowledge!

Here are my picks:

听by听Ahmed Bouanani, translated from the French by听Lara Vergnaud听(Morocco, New Directions)

听by听Xue Can, translated from the Chinese by听Annelise Finegan Wasmoen听(China, Yale University Press)

听by听Stig Dagerman, translated from the Swedish by听Paul Norlen听and听Lo Dagerman听(Sweden, David Godine)

听by听Virginie Despentes, translated from the French by听Emma Ramadan, (France, Feminist Press)

听by听Norah Lange, translated from the Spanish by听Charlotte Whittle听(Argentina, And Other Stories)

听by听Roque Larraquy, translated from the Spanish by听Heather Cleary听(Argentina, Coffee House)

听by听Guadalupe Nettel, translated from the Spanish by听Rosalind Harvey听(Mexico, Coffee House)

听by听Anne Serre, translated from the French by听Mark Hutchinson听(France, New Directions)

听by听Sj贸n, translated from the Icelandic by听Victoria Cribb听(Iceland, FSG)

听by听Olga Tokarczuk, translated from the Polish by听Jennifer Croft听(Poland, Riverhead)

(Intentionally听not听choosing the two Open Letter titles so that I can be pleasantly surprised if one makes it.)

And my winner?听CoDex 1962.听(First Big Five press to win?)

And for poetry:

听by听Roja Chamankar, translated from the Persian by听Blake Atwood听(Iran, University of Texas)

听by听Jure Detela, translated from the Slovenian by听Raymond Miller听and听Tatjana Jamnik听(Slovenia, Ugly Duckling)

听by听Hilda Hilst, translated from the Portuguese by听Laura Cesarco Eglin听(Brazil, co-im-press)

听by听Kim Hysesoon, translated from the Korean by听Don Mee Choi听(Korea, New Directions)

听by听Francis Ponge, translated from the French by听Jonathan Larson听(France, Song Cave)

Winner:听Autobiography of Death.听(Win number five for听New Directions,听with win number six coming next year when Krasznahorkai takes home his听third听trophy?)

Keaton Patterson, a lifelong Texan, has an MA in Literature from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. For the past five years, he has been the buyer at Houston鈥檚 Brazos Bookstore, where the promotion of literature in translation is always at the forefront of bookselling. He has a particular interest in fiction translated from Spanish, Italian, Japanese, and Russian.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

Fiction鈥�Lot by Bryan Washington. Not only is this a truly great literary representation of my city, Houston, Bryan is an immensely talented writer with practically limitless upside. I suggest reading this debut story collection and any of the myriad essays/blogs he’s written for periodicals like The New Yorker immediately. It won’t be long before he’s a bookish household name.

Nonfiction鈥�The Collected Schizophrenias by Esme Weijun Wang. Part memoir, part cultural critique of how the infamous mental illness has been (mis)understood and (mis)represented throughout history. This is a fascinating and necessary book.

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

Publishers print too many books.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

In no particular order鈥�Roberto Bolano, Mikhail Bulgakov, Guadalupe Nettel, Fuminori Nakamura, Han Kang

*

Sofia Samatar is the author of the novels A Stranger in Olondria and The Winged Histories, the short story collection, Tender, and Monster Portraits, a collaboration with her brother, the artist Del Samatar. Her work has received several honors including the World Fantasy Award. She teaches African literature, Arabic literature, and speculative fiction at James Madison University.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

I loved Anne Boyer’s essay collection A Handbook of Disappointed Fate. She’s a writer I watch closely, so I couldn’t wait to read it. I also reread some favorite books because I taught them this semester: Assia Djebar’s Fantasia: An Algerian Cavalcade and Abdellah Ta茂a’s An Arab Melancholia.

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

Nobody likes both Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Tayeb Salih, Kanai Mieko, Marguerite Duras, W. G. Sebald, Fleur Jaeggy

*

Tara Cheesman is a blogger turned freelance book critic, National Book Critics Circle member & 2018 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Judge. Her reviews can be found online at The Rumpus, Book Riot, Los Angeles Review of Books, Quarterly Conversation, 3:AM Magazine, and elsewhere. You can follow her on Twitter @booksexyreview and Instagram @taracheesman

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

I was able to sneak in Anthony Horowitz’ The Word Is Murder and The Sentence Is Death (out this summer) in between my BTBA reading.

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

If Henry David Thoreau was alive today he’d be living in Brooklyn. He wouldn’t actually be paying rent, just sleeping on friends’ couches. He’d drink pour-over coffee, spend a fortune on thrift store clothes, and talk incessantly about Knausgaard.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Marie NDiaye, Shahriar Mandanipour, Minae Mizumura, Lina Meruane & Therese Bohman

*

George Carroll is a former bookseller and a West Coast representative for numerous publishers of translated literature. Former World Literature Editor of Shelf Awareness, he is the curator of litintranslation.com. He currently has the most overall points in a Premier League fantasy league, populated exclusively by book rogues and ne鈥檈r-do-wells.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

Joe Ide鈥檚 three Isaiah Quintabe novels: IQ, Righteous, and Wrecked. My favorite character is a drug dealer named Junior who speaks in a combination of malapropism and purple prose.

鈥淚f you鈥檙e wasting my time, your oblivion is irrefutable . . . Are you and I correlated or do we exist in separate realities? . . . The adulation pertains to my selfhood. I am satiated beyond my concepts.鈥�

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

No one should use the words fever dream or hallucinogenic in jacket copy.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai, Sj贸n, Gon莽alo Tavares, C茅sar Aira, Roberto Bola帽o

*

Katarzyna (Kasia) Bartoszy艅ska is an English professor at Monmouth College, a translator (from Polish to English), most recently of Zygmunt Bauman鈥檚 Sketches in the Theory of Culture, published by Polity, and a former bookseller at the Seminary Co-op Bookstore in Chicago. Find her on twitter at @akasiaisakasia, or on her blog kasiapontificates.blogspot.com.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

I’m teaching a class on feminist world-building, utopias, and sci-fi this semester, and the readings for that have been AWESOME. I have loved revisiting the Bitch Planet comics, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Parable of the Sower, and critical texts like Samuel Delany’s Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, Maggie Nelson’s Argonauts, and Jose Esteban Munoz’s Cruising Utopia.

Purely recreational, non-BTBA reading鈥�I loved Sigrid Nunez’s The Friend, Eve Ewing’s Electric Arches, and Amy Gentry’s Last Woman Standing.

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

Leatherbound or fancy hardcover editions are purely for show鈥�nobody ever reads them.

3. Top 5 international authors?

(only 5???) Tove Jansson, Mo Yan, Marie NDiaye, Dorota Mas艂owska, Elena Poniatowska

*

Adam Hetherington is a reader from Tulsa.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

I read a ton of good books while avoiding my assigned reading! Quite a few were BTBA-adjacent; I went back to Zhadan鈥檚 Voroshilovgrad because I liked 2018鈥檚 Mesopotamia so much, and Yokoyama鈥檚 Six Four (which was very nearly my wild card pick for last year鈥檚 long list!) to get a better grip on his Seventeen. I was reading a bunch of nonfiction about the climate when our books first started showing up, like Vollmann鈥檚 Carbon Ideologies, Kolbert鈥檚 Sixth Extinction, and Scranton鈥檚 Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. It鈥檚 good to look this stuff in the eye, but good gravy is it ever a bummer. We are irreparably fucked. As far as fiction goes, I just finished Men and Apparitions, which I think is one of Tillman鈥檚 (who is one of the English language鈥檚) very best. I started Carrie Lorig鈥檚 The Blood Barn last night, and it whips a ton of ass so far. Great cover, too, which leads me to my next answer . . .

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

This kind of shit SUCKS. Publishers should be ashamed to use these covers. It鈥檚 simultaneously a doing disservice to the writing inside the book and to visual arts as a whole. The book world at large kind of began a conversation about awful covers when Europa put out those (allegedly) purposefully hideous Ferrante books (though that 鈥渃ritique鈥� was kind of lame considering Europa鈥檚 history of butt-ugly covers, and the fact that they鈥檙e still dropping butt-ugly covers to this day), but nothing changed. There is no reason for book covers to be ugly.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Top five is hard. I鈥檓 answering this at 9:32 PM on 4/1/19, and this list is good for 24 hours: Krasznahorkai, NDiaye, Thiong’o, Volodine, Oloixarac

*

Caitlin Luce Baker is the adult fiction/nonfiction book buyer for Island Books located on Mercer Island minutes outside Seattle. When not reading piles of books she can be found watching baseball, or wandering around Seattle taking pictures of clouds and construction cranes. Follow Caitlin on Twitter @cait_onthe_luce.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

What I say to my cat Sonic while listening to Tom Roberge of Riffraff and Chad Post of Open Letter during their excellent podcast.

My mom (in my apartment walking into my kitchen “There are more books in here!”

My dad after he visited my apartment wrote: Your apartment lovingly decorated with books.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Three well known and two recently translated authors who do not qualify for the 2019 BTBA. Ha! I鈥檓 not giving any hints.

Barbara Comyns (Yes, I know she鈥檚 wrote in English so no snide comments!), Fleur Jaeggy, Merc猫 Rodoreda, Maria Gainza look for Optic Nerve out in April from Catapult, and Seong-nan Ha look for Flowers of Mold out in April from Open Letter.

*

Elijah Watson has been a bookseller at both A Room of One鈥檚 Own Bookstore and Books & Company. He is an avid reader of literature in translation.

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

Beyond Sleep by Willem Frederik Hermans (Harry N. Abrams 2007); author of An Untouched House (Archipelago 2018) this novel was translated and published in English in 2007 and shows off more of his literary chops and dark humor. If you find a copy of this grab it and start digging in ASAP. While on the jury I also spent time working on two different edits of my good friend Leo Vartorella’s novel Gilman, a project nearing its final stages of editing, after which he’ll be seeking literary representation. Gilman examines the lives of two brothers, Ben and Abe, during a moment of crisis. Chapters weave between their past and present in a hospital room where Ben’s son lays afflicted with an unknown illness. The novel explores what it means to make a life as the brothers navigate early adulthood and reckon with the fragility of familial bonds. Working directly with him on edits has been one of the most rewarding and interesting experiences I’ve had. 听

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

Every day I see books that are published that will ruin my day if I focus on them. Examples being stupid gift books, Ben Shapiro’s book, the myriad of performative anti-Trump books by media pundits working a grift, etc. My hot take is to not give them the power of fucking my day up. There are so many great books (not just translated ones) published in this sea of bullshit and with the assistance of things like the BTBA, booksellers, publishers, and readers, we can change the way that publishing looks. In a lot of ways we live in a really great time for translated literature, of course it can always be better, but I’d rather be hopeful about at least this while the world feels like it’s burning around us all.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Laia Jufresa, Can Xue, 听Dubravka Ugresic, Joao Gilberto Noll, and Alvaro Enrigue. At least for the moment these feel like my top five.

*

Pierce Alquist has a MA in Publishing and Writing from Emerson College and currently works in publishing in Boston. She is also a freelance book critic, writer, and Book Riot contributor. She can be found on Twitter @PierceAlquist and on .

1. What is your favorite non-BTBA book that you fit into your reading these past few months?

Recent favorite reads have included All My Goodbyes by Mariana Dim贸pulos, translated by Alice Whitmore and The Summer of Dead Birds by Ali Liebegott. This week I鈥檓 reading both of Duanwad Pimwana鈥檚 new releases translated into English by Mui Poopoksakul, Bright and Arid Dreams: Stories.

2. What’s your book-related hot take?

The Man Booker is better with Americans.

3. Top five favorite international authors?

Tove Jansson, Clarice Lispector, Hiromi Kawakami, Bae Suah, Fleur Jaeggy

There are simply too many good books this year, what is to be done? The longlist can only hold 25, which means that inevitably, some books that I loved will not find a place there. Here are some of my favorites, which might not make the cut:

by Dror Burstein, translated by Gabriel Levin. Some books are like planets, dense with place and time and meaning. Muck is an astonishing story, a retelling of the Book of Jeremiah, the ancient world colliding noisily with the contemporary in a shock of misery and humor. It is such a strange and unexpected book, surreal, exuberant, and woeful all at once. It鈥檚 the kind of novel that sucks you in so strongly that its world, bizarre though it be, comes to feel more real than your own.

by Vladimir Sharov, translated by Oliver Ready. I mentioned this one months ago, in my first post, and it did not disappoint. I was frankly astonished to read something so strongly reminiscent of Dostoevsky: a weighty, metaphysical, brooding story (and a deeply disturbing one). Rehearsals describes a director charged with putting on a play about the life of Christ in medieval Russia, casting a group of peasants who come to believe that they are no longer playing a role, but truly bringing about the return of the Messiah. It鈥檚 a horrifying look at the deep veins of anti-Semitism running through Christianity, but also an incredible meditation on faith and performance.

听by Am茅lie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson. I鈥檝e been an Am茅lie Nothomb fan ever since I read Fear and Trembling. Her cruel wit and flat affect can be a bit much at times, if not properly leavened with a sense of human warmth, but this novel finds the balance more successfully than some of her other works. The story of a woman whose mother does not love her, who pursues an affair where she is similarly undervalued, it鈥檚 a surprisingly gripping account of jealousy and perseverance.

by Perumal Murugan, translated by Aniruddhan Vasudevan. India was rocked by the scandal of this book, the story of a couple struggling to conceive, and the toll it takes on their relationship. I loved the novel鈥檚 subtle illumination of the myriad social pressures couples face to reproduce (many of which are just as strong in the US), and the way it took seriously the possibility that there are advantages to not doing so. And I relished the frank pleasure they took in each other, even as disappointment and frustration threatened to tear them apart. The struggle against a tradition experienced as oppressive can seem like a clich茅 of non-Western lit, but this novel renders it both compelling and deeply relatable.

听by Karl Ove Knausguaard, translated by Don Bartlett. Look, I get why people don鈥檛 like these books (full disclosure: I haven鈥檛 read 2-5). They are appallingly narcissistic (and sometimes just appalling); testaments to the hysterical masculinity (to borrow ) of a deeply insecure and utterly arrogant man. And yet . . . there is something absolutely magnetic about Knausgaard鈥檚 chronicling of the mundane quotidian; the way he vacillates between detailed ponderings on Paul Celan to descriptions of his interactions with the cashier selling him cigarettes, or conversations with his toddler. His enthralled awe at the wondrous world of ideas, and fumbling attempts to grapple with the immensity of history, coupled with his anguished reckonings of his own selfish cruelty, were deeply (troublingly) familiar to me, and I was absolutely mesmerized. This book is truly an incredible attempt to think life, fiction, realism, and relationships.

This week, Pierce Alquist of BookRiot writes about some of the Japanese titles that have stood out to her over the course of her BTBA reading.听

While looking over the titles I鈥檝e read and enjoyed in the last few months that are eligible for the Best Translated Book Award, I noticed a pattern. There are a considerable number of Japanese titles! 2018 was a strong year for Japanese literature in translation and I鈥檝e decided to highlight a few of the standouts from a group of amazingly talented and award-winning authors and translators.

by Sayaka Murata, translated by Ginny Tapley Takemori

This book has gotten so much buzz and I have to add myself to its list of fans. Keiko Furukura has worked at a convenience store for 18 years, comfortable in the patterns and norms of the store and its customers but aware of her family and society鈥檚 general disappointment in her. When a young man enters her life she has the chance to change everything鈥攊f she wants to. From one of Japan鈥檚 most exciting contemporary writers, Convenience Store Woman is a dark, funny, and compelling novel with a heroine that defies convention and description.

by Yukiko Motoya, translated by Asa Yoneda

I loved this collection of quirky and wonderful stories. Winner of the Akutagawa Prize and the Kenzaburo Oe Prize, Motoya is a magician鈥攕he takes mundane, daily life and just twists it into these amazingly strange and fantastic tales. In these stories, a newlywed notices that her husband鈥檚 features are sneakily sliding around his face to match hers, umbrellas are more than they seem, women are challenging their boyfriends to duels, and you might want to reconsider dating the girl next door. I鈥檇 recommend this collection to fans of Hiromi Kawakami and Carmen Maria Machado.

by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Louise Heal Kawai

I鈥檓 a big fan of the Japanese novella series from Pushkin Press and of the three released in 2018 (The End of the Moment We Had, The Bear and the Paving Stone, and Ms Ice Sandwich) this one might be my favorite, but ask me again tomorrow and I鈥檒l likely give you another answer. Ms Ice Sandwich is a tender coming-of-age story about a young boy鈥檚 adoration of the woman who sells sandwiches at his local supermarket. Ms Ice Sandwich, as he calls her, is gruff and aloof but our young narrator is fascinated by her eyes, 鈥淢s Ice Sandwich鈥檚 eyelids are always painted with a thick layer of a kind of electric blue, exactly the same colour as those hard ice lollies that have been sitting in our freezer since last summer.鈥� It鈥檚 a delightfully quirky and funny novella that nonetheless deals with some serious themes. The writing is subtle and engaging, deftly translated by Louise Heal Kawai.

by Masatsugu Ono, translated by Angus Turvill

Some books are hard to capture in a review and Lion Cross Point is one of them. This beautiful and haunting story is so much more than the sum of its parts, which include coming-of-age tale, sensitive portrayal of trauma and healing, and elements of a ghost story. The writing is poignant and unsettling but never sentimental and thoughtful ten-year-old Takeru is a child narrator who will stay with you past the reading of this book. Lion Cross Point is masterfully done by Masatsugu Ono and translator Angus Turvill and I鈥檓 shocked that this is the first time Ono has been published in English.

by Hideo Yokoyama, translated by Louise Heal Kawai

Based on author Hideo Yokoyama鈥檚 own experiences, Seventeen is an intense and immersive newsroom drama that depicts the unfolding events at a local newspaper following the 1985 crash of Japan Airlines Flight 123鈥攖he deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history鈥攔ight on their doorstep. It鈥檚 a fascinating and insightful account of newsroom politics and proceedings but it鈥檚 also a complex and thoughtful look at relationships, stress, grief, and the seen and unforeseen effects of a tragic event, even decades later. And I found that this post written by Louise Heal Kawai furthered my appreciation of this incredible book.

As I get closer to narrowing down the stacks of books I鈥檝e read this past year and finalizing my BTBA 2019 longlist, there are two books I wish could win, but since they were previously released/translated unfortunately they don鈥檛 qualify.

by Taeko Kono, translated from the Japanese by Lucy North originally released by New Directions in 1996 and reissued in October of last year. These stories, published in 1960s Japan uncover the secret lives and desires of seemingly average women.

This collection left me hungry for a biography of Kono and her life in post WWII Japan. Someone please write this book!

In by Willem Frederik Hermans a WWII Dutch soldier goes AWOL and discovers an empty house, or is it? Released by Archipelago last year in a new translation by David Colmer, this is an unsettling and novella about the insanity and absurdity of war. An Untouched House is an 88-page masterpiece.

Maybe, like the Baseball Hall of Fame we need an Eras Committee to select two pre-BTBA award books for induction.

So, I鈥檝e played a little hooky in my 2019 BTBA reading, but as the adult fiction/nonfiction buyer for Island Books, I鈥檓 only doing my job right? Also, publishers keep sending me galleys please don鈥檛 stop. So, here鈥檚 a few early 2019 books I highly recommend:

by Seong-Nan Ha,听translated from the Korean by Janet Hong

Similar in feel to Toddler Hunting, Ha鈥檚 scenes of domestic life contain unnerving and surreal elements. The fourth story, 鈥淭he Woman Next Door鈥� has haunted me for weeks. Due out in April from Open Letter.

by St茅phane Larue, translated from the French by Pablo Strauss

A novel of heavy metal, art school, gambling addiction, and yes dishwashing.听 The Dishwasher is also one of the reasons my post is super late. Coming from Biblioasis in August.

by Maria Gainza, translated from the Spanish by Thomas Bunstead

A novel about a young art obsessed Argentinian woman, Rothko, her horrible surfer boyfriend, and his friends she describes as 鈥渨olves of the water,鈥� Optic Nerve is a welcome blend of life and art, and I hope Gainza writes more fiction. Available in April from Catapult.

Our 2019 BTBA longlist will be posted in about six weeks if anyone is interested in what I鈥檝e been reading I鈥檓 on Twitter .

This is my third rodeo with The Best Translated Book Award. The first year the book that I wanted to win, Seibo There Below, did. But then there was the next year. Not even close, but you have to be a team player, suck it up, and wait it out. Look where it鈥檚 got Marcus Rashford. I don鈥檛 think the book that I want to win this year, will. It鈥檚 big, it鈥檚 ambitious, it鈥檚 complicated.

Anyway, that鈥檚 off the point. I don鈥檛 want to write about books I鈥檓 reading for the award, I want to write about books that I鈥檓 not reading for the award.

Twelve years of Catholic school has set me up for a boatload of guilt. Sister Mary Loretta through the Jesuits. My problem with the BTBA is not the many crazy stacks of qualifying books in my house. It鈥檚 how do I not read the books I desperately want to read that don鈥檛 qualify? Books that aren鈥檛 coming out until later this year. Or books, already released, that are screaming at me.

Let鈥檚 start with Martin Solares. I read , a noir novel about a man hired to locate a corrupt businessman鈥檚 kidnapped daughter. It鈥檚 not the best translated book of the year; it probably won鈥檛 even make the longlist, but, wow, Solares was a find. So I asked a friend at the publisher to run down a copy of his 2006 book The Black Minutes. It鈥檚 now on my shelf. Just sitting here. Seducing me.

I just read Jean-Patrick Manchette鈥檚 unfinished thriller. It could possibly make our longlist, although a huge chunk of the book, the ending as a matter of fact, was created from the author鈥檚 notes. That he died before he could finish it totally sucks. I read Manchette鈥檚 The Mad and the Bad which has the most over-the-top shoot-out in a retail store in noir literature. But I never read Fatale. I鈥檓 in a library queue. Getting close. I鈥檓 next in line.

I鈥檝e got a PDF of the new Javier Marias novel . I have some issues with the more recent Marias releases鈥�The Infatuations and Thus Bad Begins鈥攁s in they鈥檙e not good. Not everything he writes can be as good as Tomorrow in the Battle Think On Me, but crikey, close is fine. I so want the new book to be good but if I start on it, I鈥檒l have a hard time not driving through it, hoping, hoping. Also that would mean I can鈥檛 read this Canadian novel that I鈥檝e been assigned to read where the young narrator鈥檚 mother keeps trying to commit suicide. Gee. Hard choice.

I don鈥檛 know the new Bola帽o . But that doesn鈥檛 matter. I鈥檒l read anything Bola帽o wrote. I think I have.

Missed the boat on Joe Ide鈥檚 Isaiah Quintabe novels. Watched my wife with much envy as she ran through all four of them in what felt like two days. She kept saying, 鈥淪o, when are you going to read these? You鈥檒l going to love them.鈥� Salt. Wound.

Then there are three books that are coming out later this year that will blow the next BTBA jury鈥檚 collective mind:

I鈥檝e been waiting patiently for five years for German author Reinhard Jirgl鈥檚 Die Stille to be translated. A bookseller in Paris has hand-sold hundreds of the French edition. A Berlin-based translator friend said that Jirgl is almost impossible to translate. Throws numbers in the middle of words and shit. Sounds perfect. This is the first English translation of anything he鈥檚 written, except for a couple of pieces for the Seagull Books catalog. If you have one of their catalogs, check it out. If you don鈥檛, you鈥檒l want one.

There鈥檚 the second part of The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fres谩n. Rumor, by way of my footie BFF, has it that the translation draft is being edited. Mind-bending, that Fres谩n, mind-bending. Waiting. Waiting.

Lastly there鈥檚 the knot of my guilt, L谩szl贸 Krasznahorkai鈥檚 . Seven hundred pages of my favorite author. He claims this is his last novel. He鈥檚 won the Best Translated Book Award twice. A three-peat is a serious possibility. There鈥檚 an unedited manuscript. I鈥檓 not saying I鈥檝e read it when I should have been reading BTBA qualifying titles, and I鈥檓 not saying that I didn鈥檛.

Bart Simpson: Dad, are you licking toads?

Homer Simpson: I鈥檓 not not licking toads.

Reading for an award jury is a special type of reading: very alert and very fast. I鈥檓 finding that the , combined with a certain sharpness in my eye, which has to read and judge at the same time, is enhancing my sense of the structure of a book.

It鈥檚 like developing a kind of x-ray vision. When I look back at the books I鈥檝e read for the award, I can see the bones.

: Six characters. Their monologues make up the novel. It鈥檚 an explicit homage to Virginia Woolf鈥檚 The Waves, and the text has a wavelike motion, one voice drawing back in order to make room for the next, then recurring again, so that a pattern seems to rise. But what kind of pattern is this? It鈥檚 less regular than waves; it鈥檚 more like a crazy quilt. The dominant color would be Camilla, whose name arises often, and knits the book together by appearing, in bold, in section headings: CAMILLA AND THE HORSE, CAMILLA AND CHARLES, CAMILLA AND THE REST OF THE PARTY. Even though Camilla doesn鈥檛 appear for the first few chapters, you can feel the importance, the centrality, of Camilla. Maybe Camilla isn鈥檛 a block of cloth, but rather the thread that travels all over the quilt, stitching it together.

And what about Alwida? She鈥檚 the one of the six who appears least often. A small triangle of fabric in the corner. I read a review of the book that said there are five narrators, not six; the reason for this must be Alwida. She鈥檚 easy to miss. She鈥檚 also the least intellectual of the characters, the most active, practical, a doer, a traveler. What is the point of Alwida? Why create six characters and give them not only such different roles, but such different portions of a book? In the case of a crazy quilt, the amount of each fabric is determined by how much you have鈥攖hat is, the condition of your rags. Maybe Camilla comes from a dress that wasn鈥檛 worn very often, so there鈥檚 a lot of it, while Alwida鈥檚 from something worn every day, outside, leaving just a few scraps.

(This explanation still doesn鈥檛 satisfy me; I keep thinking, why Alwida? Why so little Alwida? In orthopedic terms: a bone spur.)

That鈥檚 one example of the way I find myself looking at novels lately. Here, briefly, are two others:

: A series of splinters branching out of a single point. This point, which bulges in a monstrous way, always producing new growths, is the hospital; the splinters are the psychiatric patients interred there.

: A lovely adolescent skeleton, perpetually on the verge of change. It鈥檚 the story of a young boy, who may be a girl, staying at a dear friend鈥檚 house; no, it鈥檚 the story of the dear friend鈥檚 mother and her much younger lover; no, it鈥檚 the story of an extended family, adoption, and mistaken identities. Ultimately, it doesn鈥檛 want to take a final shape, to calcify, to die.

This is my second year as a BTBA fiction judge and (please don鈥檛 @ me) the pages are all starting to run together. I鈥檝e discovered that when reading books in rapid succession it helps to identify landmarks on the literary roadmap to keep me on course. Fortunately, a lot of the books contending for the 2019 award have plots which run parallel to chunks of information which are (somehow) simultaneously integral to and independent of the overall story. Like last year鈥檚 Compass, by Mathias 脠nard, translated by Charlotte Mandell, a book that is a moving love story and a four-part lecture on classical music.

, by Therese Bonham and translated by Marlaine Delargy, is a tense novel in which a middle-aged academic falls into a steamy affair with a charismatic graduate student half her age. What do I remember? Bookplates. That鈥檚 right. Square, paper marks of ownership which are in no way crucial to the plot. True, they represent a small act of friendship and generosity, a role that just as easily might have been filled by a potted plant or book of poetry. But the writer chose bookplates, a thing which no one uses anymore, and she must have known what she was doing because that鈥檚 the detail that resonated with me.

I finished Maria Gabriela Llansol鈥檚 because it introduced me to 鈥渂eguinages,鈥� a medieval cloister/hostel for laywomen who wanted to retreat from the world without the commitment of taking vows. This information appears in Benjamin Moser鈥檚 afterword and nowhere else in the text. But the idea and all it implies鈥攎onastic cells, vows of silence and poverty, Catholic mysticism鈥攑rovided context, an entry point, into a very complicated book.

Another example: by Norbert Scheuer and translated by Stephen Brown is illustrated with beautiful ink washes. The main character, an army paramedic named Paul, fills time between missions describing and drawing the different birds he observes in Afghanistan. He also writes about his distant relative, an ornithologist who traveled through the same region in the nineteenth century. Told from multiple perspectives, Paul鈥檚 and the people close to him, The Language of Birds is about a troubled young man wracked with feelings of grief, guilt, and loss. And it has pretty pictures of birds.

The narrative of by Veronica Gerber Bicecci, translated by Christina MacSweeney, is structured around the idea of set theory. The pages are filled with diagrams of overlapping circles which the heroine uses to describe the network of complicated relationships in her life. Visual storytelling through the medium of mathematics. It鈥檚 a clever concept used to tell a compelling story about a young woman recovering from a break-up that invites comparisons to the infamous PowerPoint chapter of Jennifer Egan鈥檚 A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Eric Plamondon鈥檚 , translated by Dimitri Nasrallah, is about the life of the 1960鈥檚 writer Richard Brautigan in much the same way Nathalie Lieger鈥檚 Suite for Barbara Loden is about the life of filmmaker Barbara Loden. Both books are essentially long essays which use their once famous subjects to explore specific cultural moments. Lieger dissects Wanda, the film Loden wrote, directed and starred in, scene by scene. In the same way, Plamondon takes readers through Brautigan鈥檚 history, including the covers of his books. Each bears a photograph of the author with a different woman who he may or may not have been sleeping with. The reasons for this minute examination are eventually explained鈥攂ut the truth is that Mayonnaise is a novel in which the journey is much more important and, ultimately, enjoyable than the final revelations.

by Guadalupe Nettel, translated by Rosalind Harvey, is another novel about love and loss. The heroine spends most of her days wandering through a number of Parisian cemeteries. Nettel鈥檚 descriptions are evocative and gorgeous. By the end, I (and I think at least one or two of the other judges) added a view of a historic cemetery, along with high ceilings and hardwood floors, to our lists of necessities for the perfect apartment.

Every one of these books is a great read . . . though which of these titles makes it onto the longlist still remains to be seen. In the meantime, if you鈥檙e interested in bookplates, beguinages, birds, set theory, 1960鈥檚 counter-culture heroes or taphophilia, there鈥檚 definitely a book here for you.

In his preface to Best European Fiction 2016, Jon Fosse wrote 鈥淏ut crime fiction is not literature; it is the opposite of it . . . for what literature is truly about, deep down, is death, what it means to die.鈥�

Seriously? I thought death and what is means to die was crime fiction.

It鈥檚 a fact that genre doesn鈥檛 win literary awards. But there are so many terribly sad, gut-wrenching submissions for literary translation awards that it鈥檚 nice to take a few breathers.

by听Jo Nesbo, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (Hogarth Press)

By far, this year鈥檚 best crime fiction is Macbeth, the newest entry in the Hogarth Shakespeare series, reinterpretations of Shakespeare鈥檚 works. In Jo Nesbo鈥檚 noir take, Macbeth is the head of a SWAT team in a bleak post-industrial, thinly disguised Glasgow. His girlfriend Lady runs one of the two casinos in town and she fuels Macbeth鈥檚 political ambitions. Parallels weave all the way through the book鈥攙isions, murders, prophesies, characters, ghosts, witches. Frankly, the book scared the shit out of me. I read this at the beginning of this year, and will definitely reread it before our longlist choices. Translated by Don Bartlett, he of the Karl Ove Knausgaard books.

听by Martin Solares, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary (Grove / Black Cat)

The body count in Don鈥檛 Send Flowers is totally over-the-top, although a lot of it happens in the margins. Northern Mexico cartels, drug lords, smugglers, hitmen, corrupt cops, and politicians. The first half of the book focuses on an ex-cop who is hired to track down an industrialist鈥檚 missing daughter; the second half on a dirty police chief. I was cautioned to skim the second half, but that鈥檚 where the good twists and turns take place. Disturbing but mostly fast-paced.

听by Gianrico Carofiglio, translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis (Bitter Lemon)

The plot slightly connects to the true-life murders of two anti-Mafia prosecutors in Sicily. Gang wars, Mafia, and corrupt Carabinieri. Learned a lot about investigation, including ideological interpretation and linguistics. There are some pretty colorful side characters鈥擳he Albino, Snowy, The Mosquito, Kojak, Curly, The Pope, Bricklayer, The Bookkeeper, The Butcher, Little Mario, Three Cylinders (nicknamed after a cardiac arrhythmia). My first exposure to Carofiglio, a very pleasant surprise.

听by Jon Michelet, translated from the Norwegian by Don Bartlett (No Exit Press)

I skated through the first third of the book until I encountered a biker character named Beach Boy / Banzai Boy / Nike Boy (he prefers Beach Boy) listening to a new Laurie Anderson CD on his Walkman. Immediately went to the copyright page and discovered the book was written in 2001. It feels like a book written in 2001.

听by Arnaldur Indridason, translated from the Icelandic by Victoria Cribb (Minotaur Books)

Indridason is best known for his Reykjavik-based Detective Erlendur series, and they鈥檙e very good. The Shadow Killer is the second in his Fl贸vent / Thorson series, the former character a detective, the latter a military policeman. A huge chunk of the book is either Fl贸vent and Thorson trying to force confessions during excruciatingly long interrogations. The first book in the series The Shadow District was far superior.

听by Luca D鈥橝ndrea, translated from the Italian by Howard Curtis (HarperCollins)

An emotionally damaged outsider-sticking-his-nose-in-where-it-doesn鈥檛-belong thriller based in a remote Italian village. The set-up takes a really long time.

by听Michel Bussi, translated from the French by Shaun Whiteside (Europa Editions)

The problem with Time is a Killer is that the end of every chapter you expect the book to go to a commercial or that you鈥檒l have to boot up the next episode on Netflix. Like Beneath the Mountain, it takes way too much time to set up.

by听Minna Lindgren, translated from the Finnish by Lola Rogers (Pan Books)

It鈥檚 fun, nice characters. Don鈥檛 believe the Miss Marple comparison鈥攊t鈥檚 not. It鈥檚 much different. Makes one want to visit Finland.

听by Helene Tursten, translated from the Swedith by Marlaine Delargy (Soho Press)

Tursten鈥檚 usual reoccurring protagonist is Detective Inspector Irene Huss, who shows up briefly in this book as a side character. This collection of five short stories feature Maud, an 88-year-old woman who solves nagging problems with a few bits of murder. Endearing, charming, and fun.