You can imagine the excitement felt across the And Other Stories team, when we received the brilliant news that not just one but two of our books have been longlisted for this year’s International Booker Prize: Ibtisam Azem’s The Book of Disappearance, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon, and Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi. Yes, we punched the air, screamed, treated ourselves to an extra coffee. Above all, we were overwhelmed with joy for these two amazing writers and their equally brilliant translators. The Book of Disappearance, described by Kamila Shamsie as ‘brilliant and audacious’ and by Claire Messud as ‘searingly executed’, has become one of our most beloved books amongst readers and booksellers, its brilliance and urgency drawing crowds to Ibtisam’s tour of UK bookshops last year.
Heart Lamp, a selection of stories from one of the biggest names in Kannada literature Banu Mushtaq, has already garnered an English PEN award, with the panel praising Deepa Bhasthi for a ‘rich translation’ that ‘captures the original’s nuances of voice, context and experience’. Banu Mustaq’s writing is, in the words of the writer Joshua Jones, marked by a ‘tender heart’ and ‘sharp eye for nuance’. We publish Heart Lamp in April, but, if you’re eager to sample Banu Mushtaq’s work, two of the stories from Heart Lamp are available online: ‘Red Lungi’ at the Paris Review and ‘Be a Woman Once, Oh Lord!’ in The Baffler.
The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday 8 April, with the winner to be announced at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday 20 May. We offer our congratulations to all of the longlisted writers, translators and publishers. It’s an honour to be in such company.
For any enquiries regarding foreign rights (international English-language and translation rights), please email stefantobler@andotherstories.org. We represent these rights for both of the International Booker titles.