Rwandan writer, Scholastique Mukasonga on the 2019 National Book Awards longlist for her book translated from French to English, “The Barefoot Woman.”
The National Book Awards has been administered and presented by the National Book Foundation, since 1987. The prize spanning across five categories; fiction, nonfiction, poetry, translated literature, and young people’s literature, is awarded annually for the best literary works published in the United States.
The longlist for the translated literature category was announced on the 17th of September, 2019, and Mukasonga’s “The Barefoot Woman” made the list.
A wide range of acclaimed writers who have all won the prestigious National Book Awards include; William Faulkner (1951 & 1955), Marianne Moore (1951), Ralph Ellison (1953), John Cheever (1958), Bernard Malamud (1967), Philip Roth (1959), Robert Lowell (1960), Walker Percy (1962), John Updike (1964), Katherine Anne Porter (1966), Norman Mailer (1969), Lillian Hellman (1970), Elizabeth Bishop (1970), Saul Bellow (1954, 1965 & 1971), Flannery O’Connor (1972), Adrienne Rich (1973), Thomas Pynchon (1973), Alice Walker (1983), E. Annie Proulx (1993), Jesmyn Ward (2011), and Ta-Nehisi Coates (2015).
The longlist for the translated literature category are;
Naja Marie Aidt, “When Death Takes Something from You Give It Back: Carl’s Book” Translated by Denise Newman Coffee House Press
Eliane Brum, “The Collector of Leftover Souls: Field Notes on Brazil’s Everyday Insurrections” Translated by Diane Grosklaus Whitty Graywolf Press
Nona Fernández, “Space Invaders” Translated by Natasha Wimmer Graywolf Press
Vigdis Hjorth, “Will and Testament” Translated by Charlotte Barslund Verso Fiction / Verso Books
Khaled Khalifa, “Death Is Hard Work” Translated by Leri Price Farrar, Straus & Giroux / Macmillan Publishers
László Krasznahorkai, “Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming” Translated by Ottilie Mulzet New Directions
Scholastique Mukasonga, “The Barefoot Woman” Translated by Jordan Stump Archipelago Books
Yoko Ogawa, “The Memory Police” Translated by Stephen Snyder Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House
Pajtim Statovci, “Crossing” Translated by David Hackston Pantheon Books / Penguin Random House
Olga Tokarczuk, “Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead” Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones Riverhead Books / Penguin Random House
The National Book Foundation will announce the shortlist on the 8th of October, 2019, and the winners will be revealed at the National Book Awards ceremony and Benefit Dinner on the 20th of November, 2019, in New York City, USA.