Rise of women’s voices in fiction is evident in the shortlist for the 2020 International Booker Prize. For the second year in a row, five out of six shortlisted books are written by female authors. The Booker Prize committee announced the shortlist for this year’s prize digitally in London on April 2.
The six novels included in this year’s shortlist are translated from five languages (Spanish, German, Dutch, Persian and Japanese). Hailing from six different countries, the authors each borrow myths and legends from their respective countries to make sense of their current traumas and losses in the face of political unrest and sweeping illness.
The shortlist:
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Shokoofeh Azar (Persian-Iran), translated by Anonymous, published by Europa Editions
The Adventures of China Iron by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara (Spanish-Argentina), translated by Iona Macintyre and Fiona Mackintosh, published by Charco Press
Tyll by Daniel Kehlmann (Germany-German), translated by Ross Benjamin, published by Quercus
Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor (Spanish-Mexico), translated by Sophie Hughes, Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa (Japanese-Japan), translated by Stephen Snyder, published by Harvill Secker
The Discomfort of Evening by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (Dutch-Netherlands), translated by Michele Hutchison, published by Faber & Faber
The jury panel for this year’s prize is chaired by Head of Literature and Spoken Word at South Bank Center, Ted Hodgkinson. The panel also includes Villa Gillet director Lucie Campos; Man Booker International-winning translator and writer Jennifer Croft; writer Valeria Luiselli; and Man Booker-shortlisted writer and musician Jeet Thayil.
The winner will be declared on May 19, 2020. The prize money worth £50,000 will be split equally between the author and the translator. Last year’s winner was Celestial Bodies by the Omani Author Jokha Alharthi, translated from Arabic by Marilyn Booth.
The books:
1. The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree 
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree by Iranian-born author Shokoofeh Azar is a powerful novel set in Iran in the period immediately after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Using the lyrical magic realism of classical Persian storytelling, Azar draws the reader deep into the heart of a family caught in the maelstrom of post-revolutionary chaos and brutality that sweeps across an ancient land and its people.
2. The Adventures of China Iron
The Adventures of China Iron by Argentine author Gabriela Cabezón Cámara is set in 1872. China is a young woman eking out an existence in a remote gaucho encampment. After her no-good husband is conscripted into the army, China bolts for freedom, setting off on a wagon journey through the pampas in the company of her new-found friend Liz, a settler from Scotland. Challenging the sentimental education China is provided by Liz, this journey open their eyes to the wonders of Argentina’s richly diverse flora and fauna, and heritage, as well as to the ruthless violence involved in nation-building.
3. Tyll
Tyll by German author Daniel Kehlmaan masterfully weaves the fates of many historical figures into this enchanting work of magical realism and adventure. This account of the seventeenth-century vagabond performer and trickster Tyll Ulenspiegel begins when he’s a scrawny boy growing up in a quiet village. And so begins a journey of discovery and performance for Tyll, as he travels across a continent devastated by the Thirty Years’ War.
4. Hurricane Season
Hurricane Season by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor is about a grisly murder of a so-called witch. The discovery of her corpse―by a group of children playing near the irrigation canals―propels the whole village into an investigation of how and why this murder occurred. Rumors and suspicions spread. As the novel unfolds in a dazzling linguistic torrent, with each unreliable narrator lingering on new details, Melchor extracts some tiny shred of humanity from these characters that most would write off as utterly irredeemable.
5. The Memory Police
The Memory Police by Japanese author Yoko Ogowa is a haunting and provocative fable about the power of memory and the trauma of loss, from one of Japan’s greatest writers. It is set in an island where a disappeared thing no longer has any meaning to the people. It can be disposed of or handed over to the Memory Police. Soon enough, the island forgets it ever existed. When a young novelist discovers that her editor is in danger of being taken away by the Memory Police, she desperately wants to save him. For some reason, he doesn’t forget, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to hide his memories. Who knows what will vanish next?
6. The Discomfort of Evening
The Discomfort of Evening by Dutch novelist Marieke Lucas Rijneveld is a radical debut novel, studded with images of wild, violent beauty. Ten-year-old Jas has a unique way of experiencing her universe: the feeling of udder ointment on her skin as protection against harsh winters; the texture of green warts, like capers, on migrating toads; the sound of 'blush words' that aren't in the Bible. But when a tragic accident ruptures the family, her curiosity warps into a vortex of increasingly disturbing fantasies—unlocking a darkness that threatens to derail them all.
