The 2024 International Booker Prize – The Shadow Shortlist

After the International Booker Prize shortlist was released a couple of weeks back, our Shadow Panel announced an intention to publish our own final selection on the 30th of April.  However, with the majority of judges having (almost) finished their reading, we decided that the time was ripe, and today sees our Shadow Shortlist revealed.

We started off with the same thirteen works that are on the official longlist, but this is where we part ways, as our selection takes nothing from the official panel’s choices other than the pool of books to select from – which means, of course, that we could theoretically choose all the books on the official shortlist, or none of them!  So what did make our cut?  Let’s find out by taking a look at the 2024 Shadow Shortlist 🙂

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Selva Almada (Argentina) & Annie McDermott
– Not a River (Charco Press)

Jenny Erpenbeck (Germany) & Michael Hofmann
– Kairos (Granta Books)

Ia Genberg (Sweden) & Kira Josefsson
– The Details (Wildfire Books)

Urszula Honek (Poland) & Kate Webster
– White Nights (MTO Press)

Domenico Starnone (Italy) & Oonagh Stransky
– The House on Via Gemito (Europa Editions)

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You may have noticed something a little unusual about our shortlist, and that’s no error.  For the first time ever, we decided to only take five books forward to the next stage of proceedings (something I’ve wanted to do in the past but never got the support for…).  There are two main reasons for this.  For one thing, this reflects a clear gap in our average scores between the top five books and the rest of the field.  In addition, it also shows that, overall, we found this year’s longlist to be a rather mediocre one.  Even if there were no truly awful inclusions, more than ever, the reading this year has often felt like more of a chore than a pleasure, and only selecting five books to move forward is one way to comment on that…

In terms of overlap, Kairos, Not a River and The Details made both lists, and the first two in particular seemed sure bets from the moment the longlist was announced.  Of the rest of the official shortlist, while Mater 2-10, What I’d Rather Not Think About and Crooked Plow all had their supporters on our panel, none of them had enough backing to make it further.

Of course, that means we’ve shortlisted a couple of books that the official judges, in their infinite wisdom, decided to cull.  A few eyebrows were raised around these parts when The House on Via Gemito was omitted from the official shortlist, but you can add a plethora of dropped jaws to that when we realised that White Nights hadn’t made the cut.  Honek’s collection of atmospheric linked stories was the one true revelation of the longlist phase, and we’re very happy to be able to shortlist it and give it the publicity it deserves.

As we have to source the books ourselves, not everyone was able to read everything in the time we had, but I think we did a pretty good job.  Four of the ten judges completed the journey, with a further four having read at least eleven of the thirteen longlisted titles.  The majority of the books were read by at least eight judges, with the lowest number of reads for any book being six, for just one title.

So, where do we go from here?  Well, a couple of judges have a book or two to finish, but for the rest of us, it’s mainly a case of rereading, rethinking and a bit of light discussion.  The official winner will be announced on the 21st of May, and as we’ve tended to reveal our winner earlier on the same day in the past, I suspect that’ll be the case this year, too.  Until then, let us know what you think about our choices – do you prefer the official list or the shadow one?  Leave a comment in the usual place 😉