Six novels to compete for International Booker Prize

A satire of expatriate life in trendy Berlin, a tale of an antiquarian book dealer stuck in a time loop, and a fictionalised retelling of a migrant boat tragedy in the English Channel, are among the sixtitles that will compete for this year’s International Booker Prize, the award’s organisers announced last week.

- ALEX MARSHALL

Perhaps the highest profile title on the shortlist for the prize for fiction translated into English is Solvej Balle’s On The Calculation Of Volume: 1 about a bookseller who relives the same day over and over again.

Balle’s novel, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, was anominee for last year's National Book Award for translated literature, and many critics have raved aboutit since its release last year. Hilary Leichter, in a review for the The New York Times, said that in Balle’s hands “the time-loop narrative takes on new and stunning proportions’.

The six shortlisted titles — four of which are under 200 pages — also include Vincenzo Latronico’s