Award shortlists. . .

There's always a lot of Canadian coverage on the shortlists of the Governor General's Literary Awards so I won't regurgitate any of it here. If you haven't seen the lists of the nominees for the multiple categories, you can read them here. I'm happy that the list differs quite a bit from the Giller - it's always nice for as many authors to get some recognition as possible. I'm particularly happy to see Chris Turner's The Geography of Hope get a non-fiction nod as his book was a Dewey pick of mine last year.

And I do hope that people take a look at one of the categories that doesn't get as much attention as fiction and non-fiction - the Translation from French into English category. Here's a great way to be introduced to some Francophone Canadian authors you may never have read before. I'm thrilled that Lazer Lederhendler, who translated Nicolas Dickner's charming and funny novel Nikolski is on the list. It was one of my favourite novels of 2007. The Deweys have just come from booktalking in Montreal where Nikolski is set, and so Quebecois literature and our hopeless inadequacies in speaking French are weighing heavily on our minds. The other nominees in this category are:
Jo-Anne Elder for translating Béatitudes by Herménégilde Chiasson
Liedewy Hawk for translating The Postman's Round by Denis Thériault
Paul Leduc Brown and Michelle Weinroth for translating The Making of Nations and Cultures of the New World by Gérard Bouchard
Fred A. Reed for translating Orfeo by Hans-Jürgen Greif

Hooray for translators!

And in other award news, the shortlist for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize has just been announced. The nominees are:
The Story That Must Not Be Told by Kavery Nambisan
Lost Flamingoes of Bombay by Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Brothers by Yu Hua
The Music Child by Alfred A. Yuson

The winner will be announced November 13th. All these titles are currently unavailable in English translation but look for the winner to have English language rights snapped up by somebody. Brothers by Yu Hua will be coming out at the end of January, 2008. Last year's winner was Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong, translated by Howard Goldblatt.