An interesting new angle on the International Man Booker prize (we covered it in February) is that they’re now giving another award at the same time to honour the translators.

It’s worth £15,000 and has been set up, in the words of Booker judging panel John Carey, because:

We became increasingly aware of the huge role translators play in making first-rate fiction accessible to a global audience.

Hear, hear ... after all, when the majority (ten out of eighteen) of the nominees for the inaugural Man International Booker Prize are translations, you can't exactly ignore these guys, right?

So: the author of the translated work collects the prize and then, if their book has been translated by more than one person, decides which of them gets the cigar. I have a feeling it could get a little complicated but what the hell, a bunfight’s always good for news, and it definitely needs to be done. Can’t wait to hear who gets the big prize though. Early June …