Publishers: It’s Time To Submit to the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize

Lest anyone forget, submissions are now open for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2011. According to the press release:

The Prize honours the best work of fiction by a living author, which has been translated into English from any other language and published in the United Kingdom during 2010. Uniquely, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize gives the winning author and translator equal status: each receives £5,000.

Last year’s longlist saw a number of works translated from the Arabic: Bahaa Taher’s Sunset Oasis (which also won the inaugural Arabic Booker), Elias Khoury’s Yalo, and Hassan Blasim’s The Madman of Freedom Square. To my disappointment, the shortlist elevated Syrian author Rafik Schami’s The Dark Side of Love, written in German, but not the brilliant Yalo.

But there’s always 2011 to pick up my spirits! So it’s time to submit. I’m not exactly sure what has appeared in the U.K. (vs. the U.S.), so I won’t start listing off what I want to see submitted. (Adania Shibli’s Touch? Is it eligible? Oh, Stealth! Sonallah Ibrahim’s Stealth is definitely eligible. I do hope our friends at Aflame have already filled out the paperwork.)