The eighteen finalists for the first ever Man International Booker Prize were announced at the end of last week at a press conference held at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. Worth £60,000 to the winner, the prize will be awarded once every two years to a living author who has published fiction either originally in English or whose work is generally available in translation in the English language.

The first thing I ever think of about awards like this is how the hell…? And, what’s the point…? Yes, sure, ‘strive to recognize and reward literary excellence’ as the Man Group talking head says, but how can you take something so subjective seriously? When they are all so fab, why one and not the other?

Well, the very high-level judges were thrown that one, natch. They were, for the record:

John Carey, the UK's most eminent literary critic, broadcaster, prolific writer, and Merton Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford for 25 years. He also chaired the Booker Prize in 1982 and in 2003.

Azar Nafisi is a visiting fellow, professorial lecturer, and the director of The Dialogue Project: The Culture of Democracy in Muslim Societies at the Foreign Policy Institute of Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, DC. Got that? She also wrote, in 2003, Reading Lolita in Tehran (Random House) which was er ... slightly controversial.

Finally, Alberto Manguel is a writer, novelist, translator and editor with more international awards than you could shake a stick at, including a Guggenheim Fellowship.

It was Senor Manguel who, in the webcast of the shortlist announcement (quite entertaining if you have broadband), acknowledged that it was largely arbitrary whom they picked, a comment that the Man Group lot loved, no doubt. But it was Professor John Carey who said, sensibly I thought, that it didn’t really matter. What matters is that this shortlist, particularly, will stimulate large amounts of argument of a literary bent. Which is great, one must agree. He also said

For us, these are eighteen authors who combine uniqueness and universality and remind us irresistibly of the joy of reading.

The judges of course found it very hard to make the cuts. Azar Nafisi, remarked upon how promiscuous she feels about the judging: she has come to regard each book as a different lover, and that each time she had to cull one it felt like self-mutilation. But she has come to realise that because the books are each a different ‘breed’ the judging has to be based upon the process of reading the book.

John Carey pointed out, interestingly, that ten of the eighteen authors have survived translation to make the list (the longlist had 95 authors from 35 countries). Based on the loose-ish precept that a work of fiction is made up of idea and style, and as no translation can wholly take the authors style with it, the idea of the translated book must bear the weight of excellence to make the grade, which makes it even more brilliant. Or something like that. Remarkable, hmm?

Oh, you want the list? Ok, here it is.

Margaret Atwood
Saul Bellow
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Gunter Grass
Ismail Kadare
Milan Kundera
Stanislaw Lem
Doris Lessing
Ian McEwan
Naguib Mahfouz
Tomas Eloy Martinez
Kenzaburo Oe
Cynthia Ozick
Philip Roth
Muriel Spark
Antonio Tabucchi
John Updike
A.B. Yehoshua

For more info on authors etc, have a look at the Man Booker site. I must say I was surprised that Nabokov was not on this list especially since Azar Nafisi also wrote Anti-Terra: A Critical Study of Vladimir Nabakov’s Novels. But at least a few other of my personal gods, including Saul Bellow, Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and Gabriel Garcia Marquez made it. Come on, drop us a comment – who’s your fave?