Tomorrow see’s the official independent foreign fiction short-list comes out .So we decide to announce ours today as with last year we choose to read as many if not all the 15 long listed books from the 2014 list and we have reviewed them my fellow jurors David ,Tony reading ,Tony messy ,Jacqui (who has been guesting on all or blogs ) and Bellezza .SO we have read ,given scores and dissected this years long list.We have yet again made a short-list of our own from the 15 books on the list just to show the strength of the list and how it can be viewed by different readers .Its been a journey from Japan ,china ,Iraq ,Germany ,Spain among the few stops .We tackled connect story collections ,memories of Russian youth ,a family waiting for a husband to return ,a son following his fathers footsteps and a stories around the ten commandments .SO after all that we look at the book ,the translation and the long lasting nature of the book for the first time it is hard thing to say but we can try and sense if a book will hang around or just disappear from view .so with out further a do I present the shadow IFFP SHORTLIST ,we will choose our winner from these six books .
The infatuations by Javier Marias .
A women’s journey with a couple she see’s evry day at a cafe ,it shows the difference in what we view and what is real .
Brief loves that live forever by Andrei Makine
A russian youth partly remembered in a collection of short stories ,touching in points .
The Sorrow of angels by Jon Kalman Stefansson
An eerie tale of 19th century Iceland where reality and myth seem to cross .My review this week
The Mussel feast by Birgit Vanderbeke
A wonderful insight into an east german family as the wall is falling .But where is the father ?
A Man in Love by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Part two of the Epic my struggle we see Karl in the book struggling with the early years of fatherhood .
The Corpse washer by Sinan Antoon
A son tries to escape his father’s life with art but the war in Iraq and his mother being ill draw him back to being a corpse washer .
Well that is our list ,you will have to wait to tomorrow to see what matches up with the Official Iffp list .
Which of these six have you read ?
