Finnegan's List 2012

The European Society of Authors is proud to present the second Finnegan's List - a selection of under-translated works, chosen and recommended by ten polyglot authors from ten different countries. Our lists propose works from both classical and contemporary literature, encompassing all the languages that are currently spoken in Europe, even those not officially recognized by the European Union.

The Finnegan project tries to point out the current gaps in literary translation, yet it also focuses on works which have already been translated but are out of print or simply forgotten by a book market always eager to pounce on the latest novelties. In struggling against the uniformity and the spirit of immediate consumption that are increasingly defining the publishing world, the Finnegan project aims to be a long-term elaboration, proposing over the years a veritable archive for translators and publishers alike.

This year we are once again very thankful to all the writers who have accepted to be part of the project and have passed onto us the titles of books that have been important to them.

In the face of recent and most worrying political evolutions - such as the resurgence of an excessive nationalism throughout Europe - it is once again crucial to affirm the importance of remaining open-minded towards other languages and cultures. Through its multilingual polyphony, Finnegan's List is striving to be a vivid expression of the essential truth that "a culture is, after all, the sum of the external influences it acquires", to quote one of the List 2012 committee's members - Juan Goytisolo.

2012 Finnegan’s List committee:

  • Hoda Barakat

    Lebanese-born Hoda Barakat is one of the most original voices in modern Arabic literature. Born in 1952, she graduated from Beirut University in 1975 with a degree in French literature. In 1975-76 she went to Paris to start a PhD but because of the civil war she decided to return to her country to work as a teacher, journalist and translator. In 1985 her first collection of short stories, entitled Za'irat, was published. She now lives as a writer in Paris. She also works for an Arabic-language radio station.

    HODA BARAKAT recommended:

    Ibn Hazm (994-1064), طوق الحمامة (The Ring of the Dove). Translated into Dutch, English, French, German, Lithuanian, Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish and Turkish.

    Bassam Hajjar, مِهَن القسوة, (Cruel Professions), Beirut-Lebanon: Dar al-Faraby, 1993. No translation.

    Sargon Boulus,  أزمة أخرى لكلب القبيلة, (Another Bone for the Tribe’s Dog), Köln, Baghdad, Beirut: Al-Kamel Verlag, 2008. No translation.

  • György Dragomán

    György Dragomán is a Hungarian author and literary translator. His best-known work, The White King (2005), has been translated into at least 28 languages. He was born in Târgu Mureş (Marosvásárhely), in Transylvania, Romania. In 1988 his family moved to Hungary. He went to school in the western Hungarian city of Szombathely, then to university in Budapest, where he obtained a degree in English and Philosophy. He has received various literary awards for his writing, such as the Sándor Bródy Prize. György Dragomán lives in Budapest.

    György Dragomán recommended:

    János Székely, A nyugati hadtest (The Western Corps), Budapest: Magvetö, 1982. Translated into Romanian.

    Péter Lengyel, Macskakő (Cobblestone), Budapest: Jelenkor, 1988/ Európa Könyvkiadó, 1994. Translated into English.

    István Szilágyi, Agancsbozót (Antleshrub), Kolozsvár: Kriterion, 1990. No translation.

  • Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt

    Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt is a French writer and translator of German origin. In 1938 he was forced to leave Germany. He first escaped to Italy, then to France. In 1949 he obtained the French nationality. He worked as a German teacher until 1992. An author and essayist, he writes and expresses himself in French. He has translated, among others, works of Walter Benjamin, Nietzsche, Kafka and Peter Handke. One of his most famous books is called Quand Freud voit la mer, an essay about Sigmund Freud and the German language.

    Georges-Arthur Goldschmidt recommended:


    Klaus Nonnenmann, Die sieben Briefe des Doktor Wambach (The Seven Letters of Doctor Wambach), Olten: Walter Verlag, 1959/ Tübingen: Klöpfer & Meyer Verlag, 2007. No translation.

    Roger Martin du Gard, Le Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort(Lieutenant-Colonel de Maumort), Paris: Gallimard, 1983. Translated into Dutch and English.

    Louis Calaferte, Requiem des innocents (Requiem of the Innocent), Paris: Éditions Julliard, 1952. No translation.

  • Vassili Golovanov

    Vassili Golovanov is a Russian writer. He holds a degree in Journalism from the Moscow State University and has written for numerous magazines and publications. He is the author of several geo-poetic essays, which were inspired by expeditions to the polar islands of Kolguyev and the New Land, Asia and the Volga delta. Ostrov, ili opravdanie bessmislennikh puteshestvi (The Island or Justification of Senseless Journeys, 2002) is one of his poetic visions of territory, in this case of the polar island of Kolguyev. He has published Tachanki s Yuga (Tachankas of the South, 1997), an investigation into the Makhnovist movement which the newspaper Nezavisimaia gazeta rated best historical book of the year at the time of its publication.

    Vassili Golovanov recommended:

    Vladislav Otroshenko, Персона вне достоверности (A Non-Credible Person), Moscow: Kolibri, 2010. Translated into English and Italian.

    Andrei Baldin, Протяжение точки (The Extension of the Full Stop), Moscow: Publisher 1 September, 2009. Translated into French.

    Vasily Nalimov, Спонтанность сознания. Вероятностная теория смыслов и смысловая архитектоника личности (Spontaneity of Consciousness: Probabilistic Theory of Meanings and Semantic Architectonics of Personality), Moscow: Prometheï, 1989. Translated into English (not published) and German.

    • read more about "Персона вне достоверности"
    • read more about "Андрей Балдин - Протяжение точки"
    • read more about "В.В.Налимов - Спонтанность сознания. Вероятностная теория смыслов и смысловая архитектоника личности"

  • Juan Goytisolo

    Juan Goytisolo is a Spanish poet, essayist, and novelist. After studying law, he published his first novel, The Young Assassins, in 1954. One of his most famous works – Marks of Identity – was, like all his other books, banned in Spain. His opposition to the Spanish dictator Francisco Franco led him into exile in Paris in 1956, where he worked as a reader for the publisher Gallimard. He currently lives in a voluntary self-exile in Marrakech. He received numerous literary awards for his work, including the Nelly Sachs Award as well as the Octavio Paz Price.

    Juan Goytisolo recommended:

    Juan Francesco Ferré, Providence (Providence), Barcelona: Anagrama, 2009. Translated into French.

    Javier Pastor, Mate Jaque (Mate Check), Barcelona: Random House Mondadori, 2009. Translated into French.

    José María Pérez Álvarez, La soledad de las vocales (The Solitude of Vowels), Barcelona: Bruguera/ International Editors’ Co., 2008. No translation.

  • Yannis Kiourtsakis

    Yannis Kiourtsakis, essayist, novelist and translator, was born in1941 in Athens. He studied law in Paris, where he lived for over ten years. Σαν μυθιστόρημα (Like a Novel), published in 1995 in Greece, is his best-known work for which he also won a prize. The book was translated into Italian under the title Come un romanzo, an exact translation of its Greek title, as well as into French in 2011 under the title Le Dicôlon. It is the first volume of a trilogy. The other two volumes are We, the Others and The Book of Work and Time. Yannis Kiourtsakis’ work can be seen as a never-ending quest for Greece and Europe, dealing with the boundaries of identity and otherness.

    Yannis Kiourtsakis recommended:

    Dionysios Solomos (1798-1857), H γυναίκα της Ζάκυνθος (The Woman of Zakynthos). Translated into English, French, German, Hungarian and Italian. Ο Κρητικός (The Cretan), Οι Ελεύθεροι Πολιορκημένοι (The Free Besieged) & Ο Πόρφυρας (Porfyras – The Shark). Translated into English and German.

    Alexandros Papadiamantis (1851-1911), Ο Έρωτας στα χιόνια (Love in the Snow). Translated into English, French and German. Ολόγυρα στη λίμνη (Around the Lagoon). Translated into English and French.

    Yannis Beratis, Το πλατύ ποτάμι (The Broad River, 1946-47), Athens: Publisher Ermis, 1973/2002. No translation.

  • Terézia Mora

    Terézia Mora was born in 1971 in Sopron, Hungary. In 1990 she moved to Berlin and read Hungarian Studies as well as drama at the Humboldt University. She also took courses in screenwriting at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin and worked for a short time as a screenwriter. Since 1998 Mora has devoted herself full-time to her writing. She also works as a translator from Hungarian into German. She received numerous prizes (Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in 1999) for her work. Der einzige Mann auf dem Kontinent (The Last Man on the Continent) is the title of her last novel.

    Terézia Mora recommended:

    Tibor Déry, Szerelem (Love, Short Story), Hungarian National Heritage Holding presented by Budapest: HoFra, 1956. Translated into Bulgarian, Czech, English, French (to come), German, Hebrew, Polish, Serbo-Croatian and Spanish (under reservation).

    Géza Csáth (1887-1919), Mesék, amelyek rosszul végzödnek (Tales That End Unhappily, Complete Short Stories). Various stories translated into Bulgarian, English, Estonian, French, German, Italian, Serbian, Spanish, Slovak and Vietnamese.

    Dieter Forte, Tetralogie der Erinnerung: Das Muster, Tagundnachtgleiche, In der Erinnerung (Trilogie: Das Haus auf meinen Schultern) & Auf der anderen Seite der Welt,(Tetralogy of Memory: “The Pattern“, “Equinox“, “In Memory” (Trilogy “The House on My Shoulders“ & “On the Other Side of the World“), Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer Verlag, 2010. “Das Muster” translated into Polish, “Tagundnachtgleiche” into French, Trilogy “Das Haus auf meinen Schultern” into Turkish.

  • Sofi Oksanen

    Sofi Oksanen is a contemporary Finnish writer, born in 1977. Her father is Finnish and her mother Estonian. So far Oksanen has published three novels and a collection of essays. One of her novels, originally conceived as a theatre play, is an international bestseller – Purge. Most of her work is or will be translated into different European languages. She has received several awards for her literary work, including the prestigious Finlandia Prize.

    Sofi Oksanen recommended:


    Asko Sahlberg, Höyhen (The Feather), Helsinki: WSOY, 2002. Translated into Czech.

    Arto Salminen, Lahti (The Slaughter), Helsinki: WSOY, 2004. No translation.

    Mirkka Rekola, Kuka lukee kanssasi? (Who Reads With You?), Helsinki: WSOY, 1990. Translated into English and Swedish.

  • Roman Simić

    Roman Simić was born in 1972 in Zadar, Croatia. He is the artistic director of the Festival of the European Short Story and the editor of the series Anthologies of European Short Story.His own short fiction has been included in various selections and anthologies of contemporary Croatian prose and translated into several European languages. U što se zaljubljujemo (What Are We Falling in Love With, short stories, 2005) won the Jutarnji-List Prize for the best Croatian prose book of the year. Roman Simić lives in Croatia and works as an editor for Profil.

    Roman Simić recommended:

    Mirko Kovač, Kristalne rešetke (Crystal Grids), Zagreb: Fraktura, 1995/2004. Translated into Polish, Serbian, Slovenian and Swedish.

    Olja Savičević Ivančević, Adio kauboju (Farewell Cowboys), Zagreb: Algoritam, 2010. Translated into German and Serbian, rights sold for the Spanish and Macedonian language.

    Senko Karuza, Teško mi je reći (It’s Hard For Me To Say, Collected Stories), Zagreb: Profil, 2007. Various stories translated into English, German and Italian.

  • Adam Thirlwell

    Adam Thirlwell was born in 1978 and grew up in North London. He read English at New College, Oxford, and was then a prize fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, from 2000 to 2007. His first novel, Politics, was published in 2003. A book on the international art of the novel, Miss Herbert, was published in 2007 and won the 2008 Somerset Maugham Award. His second novel is The Escape (2009). In 2003 Adam Thirlwell was named by Granta magazine as one of twenty 'Best of Young British novelists'. He lives in London.

    Adam Thirlwell recommended:

    Gertrude Stein, Wars I Have Seen, New York: Random House, 1945. Translated into French, German, Italian and Spanish.

    Elizabeth Bishop, Letters, New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1994. Translated into Portuguese (Brazil).

    Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682), The Complete Works. Varied works translated into French, German, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Swedish.


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