The Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel is a finalist for the International Booker Prize for 'The only daughter'

Mexican writer Guadalupe Nettel is a finalist for the International Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious English-speaking literary prizes, for her novel

, translated by Rosalind Harvey.

The

, or short list, of finalists, announced this Tuesday, also includes the Catalan Eva Baltasar, with

;

the Guadeloupean Maryse Condé, with

the Ivorian GauZ', with

the Bulgarian Georgi Gospodinov, with

and

the South Korean Cheon Myeong-kwan, with

The winner of the prize, which recognizes the best international work of fiction translated into English and awards 50,000 British pounds (1.1 million Mexican pesos), will be announced on May 23.

La hija única

was published in Spanish by Anagrama in 2020 and edited in English by Fritzcarraldo Editions under the title

The novel deals with three different ways of understanding motherhood, Laura's, Alina's and Doris's, and the links they establish between them.

For the jury, the text explores in a "sensitive and surgically precise" way the "ambivalence" of being a mother.

"With a convoluted and involving plot, the novel raises some of the thorniest questions about freedom, disability and dependency, all with language so forceful that it burns," the judges have determined.

"She was fed up with the traditional happy motherhood," said the author in an interview with EL PAÍS.

Nettel, 49 years old and born in Mexico City, is also the author of

(2006),

(2011) and won the Herralde Prize for

(2014).

In 2013, she won the Ribera del Duero Short Narrative Award with the storybook

.

She is also director of the

.

Her work has been translated into more than 15 languages ​​and her texts have been published in media such as

or

, as well as EL PAÍS.

Among the six finalists is also

by the Spanish Eva Baltasar, with translation by Julia Sanches.

Her novel is the first translated from Catalan to enter the short list for the award.

For the jury, it is "a sensual, sexy and intense book" that in little more than 100 pages "condenses the sensations and experiences of a dozen more current novels".

, by Maryse Condé, recognized as the great lady of Caribbean literature,

has been selected .

The work has been translated into English by Richard Philcox, and in Spanish it bears the title of

.

The jury has assessed that the work "borrows the tradition of magical realism" to build a fiction that mixes "humor with poetry and depth with lightness".

The jury has also selected

, the work of the Ivorian writer and journalist GauZ', translated by Frank Wynne.

The novel offers "a sharp and satirical look at the legacies of French colonial history and life in modern-day Paris," according to the jury.

, by the Bulgarian Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel, has entered the list after the judges determined that it is a "broad, suggestive, macabre and humorous novel" that addresses "the healing and destructive power of memory ”.

Plus, compete for the

, from the South Korean Cheon Myeong-kwan, which has been translated by Chi-Young Kim.

This text is "a carnivalesque fairy tale", according to the jury, which configures "a hymn to restlessness and personal transformation".

The award recognizes the best international work of fiction translated into English and is selected from books published in the UK or Ireland between May 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023. The award awards winners £50,000: £25,000 for the author and 25,000 for the translator.

This year, the jury is chaired by the French-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani and made up of Uilleam Blacker, one of the leading British literary translators from Ukrainian;

Tan Twan Eng, Booker-listed Malay novelist;

Parul Sehgal, writer and critic for

, and Frederick Studemann, literary editor for the

.

The International Booker Prize has been awarded since 2005. Initially, under the name of the Man Booker International Prize, it was a biennial prize for a set of works, and it was not stipulated that they should be written in a language other than English.

Among the first winners were Alice Munro, Lydia Davis or Philip Roth.

In 2015, the bases were expanded to allow the participation of writers of any nationality.

Since then, it has been awarded annually to a single book written in another language and translated into English.

In recent years, among the nominees have been Latin American authors such as Mariana Enriquez, Benjamín Labatut, Valeria Luiselli, Fernanda Melchor or Gabriela Cabezón Cámara.

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