Bellevue Longlisted for the EBRD Literary Prize

The EBRD Literature Prize 2020 was launched by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development two years ago to promote translated literary fiction from its regions of operations, announces its selected longlist today. 

This is now the third year of the EBRD Literature Prize – one of the few international literature prizes which recognises both author and translator in equal measure. The €20,000 prize provides a unique opportunity to convey the culture, creativity and history of countries from central and eastern Europe to the Baltic states, Central Asia, the Western Balkans and the southern and eastern Mediterranean.   

The independent panel of judges for the EBRD Literature Prize 2020 has selected 10 novels that it considers to be outstanding works of storytelling. Rosie Goldsmith, Chair of the Judges, said: “In this year’s longlist, we have multiple narratives and fictional autobiographies, genre-defying literary hybrids, intricate page-turning literary fiction with beginnings, middles and ends, detective stories resembling historical novels, but also seductive, plotless, pared back prose as well as magnificent morality tales more akin to oral storytelling. Every which way! Our longlisted EBRD authors and translators are rewriting the traditional novel as we knew it.”

(note: text adapted from the EBRD website)

One of the books on the longlist is the novel Bellevue  by Ivana Dobrakovová. It was published in 2010 in Slovak and since then has been translated into Polish and Bulgarian. In 2019, the novel came out in English, translated by Julia Sherwood and Peter Sherwood and published by Jantar Publishing.

 

The longlist, in alphabetical order by author:

Not Saying Goodbye - Boris Akunin, translated by Andrew Bromfield (Orion Books)
Sacred Darkness - Levan Berdzenishvili, translated by Brian James Baer a Ellen Vayner (Europa Editions)
Mrs Mohr Goes Missing - Maryla Szymiczkowa, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Oneworld Publications)
Bellevue - Ivana Dobrakovová, translated by Julia and Peter Sherwood (Jantar Publishing)
ICE - Sonallah Ibrahim, translated by Margaret Litvin (Seagull Books)
Devilspel - Grigory Kanovich, translated by Yisrael Elliot Cohen (Noir Press)
Every Fire You Tend - Sema Kaygusuz, translated by Nicholas Glastonbury (Tilted Axis Press)
Under Pressure - Faruk Šehić, translated by Mirza Purić (Istros Books)
Pixel - Krisztina Tóth, translated by Owen Good (Seagull Books)
Zuleikha - Guzel Yakhina, translated by Lisa C. Hayden (Oneworld Publications)

The shortlist and more information about the prize can be found here: EBRD