Khaled Khalifa’s ‘In Praise of Hatred’ on this Year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize Longlist
It’s difficult to find a moment to celebrate or congratulate. Nonetheless:
Mabrouk to Khaled Khalifa that his excellent novel, In Praise of Hatred, trans. beautifully Leri Price (mabrouk, Leri) made this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize (IFFP) longlist, which apparently was released slightly ahead of schedule.
In Praise of Hatred, published in 2006, was also shortlisted for the International Prize for Arabic Fiction in 2008.
In my review of Khalifa’s novel (“The Great Hate Story“), I noted: “Love is a subject that has animated great poetry, novels and memoirs for a thousand years and more. Hate has been explored comparatively little.” Khalifa’s dense, beautiful book does an excellent job of exploring the dimensions of, and human uses for, hate, which he shows as much more than simply “the absence of” or flip-side of love.
The book is officially banned in Syria, where Khalifa was attacked while participating in the funeral of a friend, Rabi Ghazzy. The author is currently in Brussels for the Passa Porta Festival, where he will stay for five weeks working on a novel set during the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
Many of the world’s great writers, and some of the English language’s best translators, are on this year’s IFFP longlist, which has previously featured Hassan Blasim’s Madman of Freedom Square and Elias Khoury’s Yalo (both 2010). Three of the five judges for this year’s prize — Elif Shafak, Frank Wynne and Boyd Tonkin — will discuss the long-list at the ‘Independent’ Bath Literature Festival today. The other two judges are Gabriel Josipovici and Jean Boase-Beier.
The shortlist will be announced next month, and the winner in May.
Other books on the IFFP longlist:
Gerbrand Bakker: The Detour (translated by David Colmer from the Dutch), and published by Harvill Secker
Chris Barnard: Bundu (Michiel Heyns; Afrikaans), Alma Books
Laurent Binet: HHhH (Sam Taylor; French), Harvill Secker
Dasa Drndic: Trieste (Ellen Elias-Bursac; Croatian), MacLehose Press
Pawel Huelle: Cold Sea Stories (Antonia Lloyd-Jones; Polish), Comma Press
Pia Juul: The Murder of Halland (Martin Aitken; Danish), Peirene Press
Ismail Kadare: The Fall of the Stone City (John Hodgson; Albanian), Canongate
Karl Ove Knausgaard: A Death in the Family (Don Bartlett; Norwegian), Harvill Secker
Laszlo Krasznahorkai: Satantango (George Szirtes; Hungarian), Tuskar Rock
Alain Mabanckou: Black Bazaar (Sarah Ardizzone; French), Serpent’s Tail
Diego Marani: The Last of the Vostyachs (Judith Landry; Italian), Dedalus
Andrés Neuman, Traveller of the Century (Nick Caistor & Lorenza Garcia; Spanish), Pushkin Press
Orhan Pamuk: Silent House (Robert Finn; Turkish), Faber
Juan Gabriel Vásquez: The Sound of Things Falling (Anne McLean; Spanish), Bloomsbury
Enrique Vila-Matas: Dublinesque (Rosalind Harvey & Anne McLean; Spanish), Harvill Secker
March 2, 2013 @ 2:10 pm
Reblogged this on Hummingbird and commented:
One of my favorite novels ever, the heroin looks like me many years before when I used to hate, when my mind used to be manipulated.
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