Latin American writers assault the Man Booker International list

Step by step, Latin American literature is confirming that its new flag, its most stimulating production and its international leadership are changing hands. From authors to authors. This year's Man Booker International list is the penultimate sign of the gender and generation relay. If only 15 years ago, the names that walked among the nominees of the prestigious British award were Gabriel García Márquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa; Today the list is dominated by three writers: the Mexican Fernanda Melchor (38 years old) and the Argentine Samanta Schweblin (42) and Gabriela Cabezón (52).

The Booker International awards since 2005 the best translations published in the British market, as a complement to the original award - born in 1969 - for books in the English language, and which last year counted among its prenominadas with Sound Desert , the first novel written in English by Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli (36 years old). The preliminary list known on Thursday will pass a new cut in April, where only five titles will fight for the final award, which will be delivered in October and will be endowed with 50,000 pounds, about $ 64,400, to be distributed between author and translator. The last winners have been Korean bestseller Han Kang and, a year before the Nobel, the Polish Olga Tokarczuk.

MORE INFORMATION

• “The United Kingdom is one of the most segregated countries in the world”
• Literature as homeland of two conflicts

Together with the three Latin American writers, heavyweights such as Michael Houellebecq with Serotonin (Flammarion, 2019) or Enrique Vila-Matas with Mac and his setback also appear on the list (Seix Barrall 2017). Although this year's edition is especially marked by a majority presence of independent publishers. Nine of the 13 shortlisted titles do not correspond to the big multinationals in the book. "This shows that the small labels are doing a great job, making risky decisions when betting on ambitious fictions, which in the end confirm that they are also relevant," said French academic Lucie Campos, a juror with fellow academic Ted Hodgkinson or the writers Jennifer Croft or Valeria Luiselli herself.

Until 2017, there was no Latin American writer on the list. The first was Samantha Schweblin, with her second storybook, Birds in the mouth. He repeated last year, reaching the final nominees, with Rescue Distance and returns this year for the third time with the novel Kentukis (Random House, 2019). Translated from Spanish by Megan McDowel with the title Little Eyes , the jury has described it as "a deep dystopia located in the context of the contemporary obsession to observe and be observed." The Kentukis of the original title are stuffed animals, protagonists of the novel, halfway between a furby and a cell phone, managed remotely by an anonymous tablet. The kentukis are a pet, a spy, a voyeur , a virus.

The impact in Mexico of Hurricane Season (Random House, 2017), Fernanda Melchor's first novel, is also spreading throughout the Anglo-Saxon world. His imminent publication by Fitzcarraldo Books - the same publisher of Schweblin, a niche label specializing in Latin American literature - is being announced as one of the most anticipated novelties by the mythical Strand bookstore in New York. While this same Tuesday, it was chosen as the book of the day by the English newspaper The Guardian , which in its review underlined the "imaginative structure that sustains a mysterious murder in a lawless Mexico." There are more than 200 pages divided into just eight paragraphs, through which a torrential exercise of style and mastery of the game of voices and points of view are displayed.

The Guardian closes its review with a message to the latest editorial controversy in the United States: "This is not one of Oprah's reading club books, but you can't miss it." It refers to A merican Dirt, a novel about a Mexican family forced to flee to the US because of drug pressure. The book was recently recommended by the famous television presenter and has raised a heavy dust in the Latino community, which accuses the author, Jeanine Cummins, and the publisher of cultural appropriation and a total lack of sensitivity.

The triad of preselected Latin American authors closes with the also Argentine Gabriela Cabezón and her third novel: The Adventures of the China Iron (Random House, 2019), a feminist rewriting of the Argentine founding work of the late 19th century, Martin Fierro , who consolidated the figure of the gaucho as a popular hero in the epic imaginary. Published by the Scottish Charco Press, the jury has highlighted the “enormous challenge it has posed for translators - Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh - and that have solved them with imagination and elegance”.

The Booker Prize Foundation introduced the Man Booker International Prize in 2005 on a biennial basis to distinguish fiction authors translated into English for all its literary production, and its winners include Ismail Kadaré, Alice Munro or Philip Roth, among others. Since 2016, the organization completely modified its approach to turn it into an annual event that claims the importance of literary translations and rewards, instead of a career, a work of concrete fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom.