Alert! Ivan Vladislavić has been shortlisted for the 2016 International Literature Award for the German translation of his book Double Negative.
The German edition, also titled Double Negative, was translated by Thomas Brückner and published by A1 Verlag in 2015.
The International Literature Award, known in German as Internationaler Literaturpreis – Haus der Kulturen der Welt, is a German literary award for international prose translated into German for the first time. Winning authors receive £25,000 and the translators £10,000.
The prize judges said:
In his often mirrored novel Double Negative, South African essayist and writer Ivan Vladislavić manages the feat of linking great themes of the history of civilisation (racial segregation in his home) with moral and aesthetic issues (what is the truth of photography) to an important story about the time during and after apartheid. After the first free elections, the narrator returns to South Africa from London – now a photographer himself – to observe the changes. But what has really changed? Vladislavić stages the history without any kitsch or sentimentality, making the book, beautifully translated by Thomas Brückner, a literary masterpiece.
Internationaler Literaturpreis – Haus der Kulturen der Welt shortlist
- Author: Johannes Anyuru, translator: Paul Berf
Ein Sturm wehte vom Paradiese her
Swedish: En storm kom från paradiset
Publishers: Luchterhand Literaturverlag 2015, Norstedts, Stockholm 2012 - Author: Joanna Bator, translator: Lisa Palmes
Dunkel, fast Nacht
Polish: Ciemno, prawie noc
Publishers: Suhrkamp Verlag 2016, WAB, Warschau 2012 - Author: Alexander Ilitschewski, translator: Andreas Tretner
Der Perser
Russian: Перс
Publishers: Suhrkamp Verlag 2016, Astrel, Moskau 2010 - Author: Valeria Luiselli, translator: Dagmar Ploetz
Die Geschichte meiner Zähne
Spanish: La historia de mis dientes
Publishers: Verlag Antje Kunstmann 2016, Editorial Sexto Piso, Mexiko 2014 - Author: Shumona Sinha, translator: Lena Müller
Erschlagt die Armen!
French: Assommons les pauvres!
Publishers: Edition Nautilus 2015, Editions de l’Olivier, Paris 2011 - Author: Ivan Vladislavić, translator: Thomas Brückner
Double Negative
English: Double Negative
Publishers: A1 Verlag 2015, Umuzi, Kapstadt 2010
The Internationaler Literaturpreis was won by Teju Cole in 2013, for Open City (translated by Christine Richter-Nilsson), while NoViolet Bulawayo was shortlisted in 2015 for We Need New Names (translated by Miriam Mandelkow).
Double Negative was originally published by US-Italian publishers Contrasto in 2010 in a sleeved set with TJ, a book of photographs by David Goldblatt. The project received the 2011 Kraszna-Krausz Award for best photography book.
It was released as a standalone paperback by Umuzi in 2011, and then in the United Kingdom and North America by And Other Stories in November 2013, becoming Vladislavić’s first book to be published in those territories.
Cole wrote the introduction for the And Other Stories edition, and joined Vladislavić on his book tour in New York. Cole was also Vladislavić’s co-winner, along with Helon Habila, of the 2015 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction.
Vladislavić is the only author to have won both the Sunday Times Fiction Prize (for The Restless Supermarket in 2002) and the Sunday Times Alan Paton Award for Non-fiction (for Portrait with Keys: Joburg & What-What in 2007). He has also won the Olive Schreiner Prize (Missing Persons, 1991), the CNA Literary Award (The Folly, 1993), the Thomas Pringle Prize (“Propaganda by Monuments” and “The WHITES ONLY Bench”, 1994), the University of Johannesburg Prize (Portrait with Keys: Joburg & What-What, 2007 and Double Negative, 2011), the M-Net Literary Award (Double Negative, 2011) and the 2015 Windham–Campbell Literature Prize (Fiction). He is a Distinguished Professor in the Creative Writing Department at Wits University.
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Book details
- Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic, translated by Thomas Bruckner
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EAN: 9783940666673
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- Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic
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EAN: 9781415201329
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- Double Negative by Ivan Vladislavic
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EAN: 9781908276261
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