IMPAC Prize Shortlist

The 2009 Shortlist for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award was announced earlier today. And here are your eight finalists (is there any rhyme and/or reason to this figure? or the enormously long longlist?):

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz

• Ravel by Jean Echenoz, translated from the original French by LInda Coverdale

• The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

• The Archivist’s Story by Travis Holland

• The Burnt-Out Town of Miracles by Roy Jacobsen, translated from the original Norwegian by Don Shaw and Don Bartlett

• The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

• Animal’s People by Indra Sinha

• Man Gone Down by Michael Thomas