The 2013 Man Booker International shortlist was widely called one of the most diverse, but this year's selection – the prize is given once in two years – is arguably even more so. Six of the ten countries represented – Libya, Mozambique, Guadeloupe, Hungary, South Africa, and Congo – are on the list for the first time ever. And eight of the ten are translated into English from other languages. A closer look at this year's contenders for one of the most prestigious literary prizes.
César Aira (Argentina)
The 66-year-old author is a towering presence in the Argentine literary world. He is extremely prolific, with more than eighty works to his credit, roughly two every year since the mid 1970s. Born in a small town called Coronel Pringles, Aire moved to Buenos Aires and became influenced by avant-garde literature and surrealism. He sees himself as part of the tradition of “automatism”; he begins a work and writes steadily straight through it, not pausing to change or correct it. Aira is deeply interested in process and procedure, and has often remarked that he's more an artist who writes books rather than an author. He's renowned for being experimental, and for his bizarre plots.
Hoda Barakat (Lebanon)
After studying French Literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, Barakat went to Paris to work on a PhD in the mid 1970s. She returned to Lebanon when the Civil War began. She now lives in France, in exile from Lebanon. Her works draw on her personal experience of the Civil War, which has been the setting for all of the stories and novels she has written so far. Her central protagonists are always men, who are marginalised by society and hence suffer even more so during the conflict. Her novel Hajar al-Dahik (The Stone of Laughter) is the first Arabic novel with a gay protagonist. She is hugely celebrated in France, and is considered one of the most important novelists of the Middle-East.
Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe)
Maryse Condé was born in Pointe-ý-Pitre, Guadeloupe and educated in Paris. She has lived and taught in Guinea, Ghana, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, England, Paris, and the USA. Condè has said time and again that her characters are mouthpieces of her own political views on gender, class, race, and poverty. In spite of this, she has said that she is not a "messenger", but that her writing is a way for her to comprehend life. In her works, this is reflected in the development of her protagonists when they are confronted by major cultural upheavals. She is the first Francophone novelist from the Caribbean to write about the relationship between colonial United States and the English Caribbean.
Mia Couto (Mozambique)
Mia Couto is considered to be one of the most important writers in Mozambique, and often writes about the 1977 Mozambique Civil War, two years after his country gained independence from Portugal. Although his deployment of surrealism often causes him to be termed a writer of magic realism, Couto himself does not like the label. He is widely celebrated as one of the best writers of Portuguese today, and is influenced by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa and Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira. In contrast to Barakat, Couto prefers to write female characters, believing that they allow for him to create more complexity. His works have been translated into English since 1990.
Amitav Ghosh (India)
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta, and educated in Delhi and Oxford. He is a trailblazer of Indian writing in English, with the scope of his work stretching from postcolonial literary fiction to science fiction, to travel writing and nonfiction. Ghosh builds vast, interlocking narratives, most recently demonstrated in the Ibis Trilogy, of which the third novel is out this year. The Ibis Trilogy is historical fiction set against the backdrop of the opium trade between India and China. He has won the Arthur C. Clarke award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Ananda Puraskar, among other honours. He was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2008 for Sea of Poppies.
Fanny Howe (US)
Fanny Howe was born in Boston, into a family of scholars and artists, and was involved in the civil rights movement. She is a renowned poet, but is also a skilled fiction writer and essayist - her first collection of short stories came out the same year she published her first book of poetry. She has said that poetry remains the foremost influence on her prose. She is widely read in different kinds of fiction – Latin American, Russian, Haitian, African, Italian, British – and has said that as a result, has imagined her reader to be in other contexts and cultures. Her fiction includes several semi-autobiographical novels set in Boston. Much of her fiction deals with class, race, and the meeting of different cultures.
Ibrahim al-Koni (Libya)
Born in Libya, in the desert of the Tuareg, Ibrahim al-Koni didn't know how to read or write until he was twelve years old, but is now one of the most significant voices in Arabic literature, and has won many prestigious awards in the Arab world. These honours include the Mohamed Zefzaf Prize for the Arabic Novel (2005), and the Sheikh Zayed Award for Literature (2008). He has lived and worked in Russia, Poland, and Switzerland. His work includes over sixty novels, short stories, and poetry. His writing springs from the desert, and uses the desert to confront and explore the human condition. It has been noted for its spiritual and mythological elements.
László Krasznahorkai (Hungary)
Susan Sontag called László Krasznahorkai “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville.” He was born in Gyula, and educated in Budapest. In 1985, he published his novel Satantango, which earned him huge acclaim and is now considered a modern classic. His friend, filmmaker Bela Tarr, has adapted several of his works into cinema in collaboration with Krasznahorkai himself acting as screenwriter. He is known for his demanding prose, particularly his sprawling sentences, which his translator, the poet George Szirtes, has called "a slow lava-flow of narrative, a vast black river of type." He has been given the most important literary award in Hungary, the Kossuth Prize.
Alain Mabanckou (Republic of Congo)
Alain Mabanckou is among one of the most renowned French writers alive today. He has written nine novels, six collections of poetry, and a biography of James Baldwin. He is the first writer from Francophone Africa to be published under the French publisher Gallimard's La Blanche imprint. He has been awarded a Légion d'Honneur and a number of other literary prizes. This recognition of Mabanckou as a writer is huge, and as The Economist pointed out in 2011, more than a little ironic, considering that the author is subverting the French canon and the language itself. Mabanckou is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marlene van Niekerk (South Africa)
Marlene van Niekerk is a novelist, professor, poet, dramatist and critic who grew up in the Overberg region of South Africa. She teaches Afrikaans and Dutch literature and creative writing at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She is known for her writing about gender, race, and socio-political upheaval in post-apartheid South Africa. For her groundbreaking work in postcolonial South African literature, she has been honoured many times, including with the Order of Ikhamanga in 2011. Her work Triomf was the first Afrikaans novel to win the Noma award, and was a New York Times notable book in 2004.
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César Aira (Argentina)
The 66-year-old author is a towering presence in the Argentine literary world. He is extremely prolific, with more than eighty works to his credit, roughly two every year since the mid 1970s. Born in a small town called Coronel Pringles, Aire moved to Buenos Aires and became influenced by avant-garde literature and surrealism. He sees himself as part of the tradition of “automatism”; he begins a work and writes steadily straight through it, not pausing to change or correct it. Aira is deeply interested in process and procedure, and has often remarked that he's more an artist who writes books rather than an author. He's renowned for being experimental, and for his bizarre plots.
Hoda Barakat (Lebanon)
After studying French Literature at the Lebanese University in Beirut, Barakat went to Paris to work on a PhD in the mid 1970s. She returned to Lebanon when the Civil War began. She now lives in France, in exile from Lebanon. Her works draw on her personal experience of the Civil War, which has been the setting for all of the stories and novels she has written so far. Her central protagonists are always men, who are marginalised by society and hence suffer even more so during the conflict. Her novel Hajar al-Dahik (The Stone of Laughter) is the first Arabic novel with a gay protagonist. She is hugely celebrated in France, and is considered one of the most important novelists of the Middle-East.
Maryse Condé (Guadeloupe)
Maryse Condé was born in Pointe-ý-Pitre, Guadeloupe and educated in Paris. She has lived and taught in Guinea, Ghana, Senegal, the Ivory Coast, England, Paris, and the USA. Condè has said time and again that her characters are mouthpieces of her own political views on gender, class, race, and poverty. In spite of this, she has said that she is not a "messenger", but that her writing is a way for her to comprehend life. In her works, this is reflected in the development of her protagonists when they are confronted by major cultural upheavals. She is the first Francophone novelist from the Caribbean to write about the relationship between colonial United States and the English Caribbean.
Mia Couto (Mozambique)
Mia Couto is considered to be one of the most important writers in Mozambique, and often writes about the 1977 Mozambique Civil War, two years after his country gained independence from Portugal. Although his deployment of surrealism often causes him to be termed a writer of magic realism, Couto himself does not like the label. He is widely celebrated as one of the best writers of Portuguese today, and is influenced by Brazilian writer João Guimarães Rosa and Angolan writer José Luandino Vieira. In contrast to Barakat, Couto prefers to write female characters, believing that they allow for him to create more complexity. His works have been translated into English since 1990.
Amitav Ghosh (India)
Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta, and educated in Delhi and Oxford. He is a trailblazer of Indian writing in English, with the scope of his work stretching from postcolonial literary fiction to science fiction, to travel writing and nonfiction. Ghosh builds vast, interlocking narratives, most recently demonstrated in the Ibis Trilogy, of which the third novel is out this year. The Ibis Trilogy is historical fiction set against the backdrop of the opium trade between India and China. He has won the Arthur C. Clarke award, the Sahitya Akademi Award, the Ananda Puraskar, among other honours. He was previously shortlisted for the Booker in 2008 for Sea of Poppies.
Fanny Howe (US)
Fanny Howe was born in Boston, into a family of scholars and artists, and was involved in the civil rights movement. She is a renowned poet, but is also a skilled fiction writer and essayist - her first collection of short stories came out the same year she published her first book of poetry. She has said that poetry remains the foremost influence on her prose. She is widely read in different kinds of fiction – Latin American, Russian, Haitian, African, Italian, British – and has said that as a result, has imagined her reader to be in other contexts and cultures. Her fiction includes several semi-autobiographical novels set in Boston. Much of her fiction deals with class, race, and the meeting of different cultures.
Ibrahim al-Koni (Libya)
Born in Libya, in the desert of the Tuareg, Ibrahim al-Koni didn't know how to read or write until he was twelve years old, but is now one of the most significant voices in Arabic literature, and has won many prestigious awards in the Arab world. These honours include the Mohamed Zefzaf Prize for the Arabic Novel (2005), and the Sheikh Zayed Award for Literature (2008). He has lived and worked in Russia, Poland, and Switzerland. His work includes over sixty novels, short stories, and poetry. His writing springs from the desert, and uses the desert to confront and explore the human condition. It has been noted for its spiritual and mythological elements.
László Krasznahorkai (Hungary)
Susan Sontag called László Krasznahorkai “the contemporary Hungarian master of apocalypse who inspires comparison with Gogol and Melville.” He was born in Gyula, and educated in Budapest. In 1985, he published his novel Satantango, which earned him huge acclaim and is now considered a modern classic. His friend, filmmaker Bela Tarr, has adapted several of his works into cinema in collaboration with Krasznahorkai himself acting as screenwriter. He is known for his demanding prose, particularly his sprawling sentences, which his translator, the poet George Szirtes, has called "a slow lava-flow of narrative, a vast black river of type." He has been given the most important literary award in Hungary, the Kossuth Prize.
Alain Mabanckou (Republic of Congo)
Alain Mabanckou is among one of the most renowned French writers alive today. He has written nine novels, six collections of poetry, and a biography of James Baldwin. He is the first writer from Francophone Africa to be published under the French publisher Gallimard's La Blanche imprint. He has been awarded a Légion d'Honneur and a number of other literary prizes. This recognition of Mabanckou as a writer is huge, and as The Economist pointed out in 2011, more than a little ironic, considering that the author is subverting the French canon and the language itself. Mabanckou is a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marlene van Niekerk (South Africa)
Marlene van Niekerk is a novelist, professor, poet, dramatist and critic who grew up in the Overberg region of South Africa. She teaches Afrikaans and Dutch literature and creative writing at Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She is known for her writing about gender, race, and socio-political upheaval in post-apartheid South Africa. For her groundbreaking work in postcolonial South African literature, she has been honoured many times, including with the Order of Ikhamanga in 2011. Her work Triomf was the first Afrikaans novel to win the Noma award, and was a New York Times notable book in 2004.