Two Israeli authors have made the long-list for the Arts Council England's Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, announced last night.
A B Yehoshua - who is is the special guest for the Jewish Chronicle evening on the final night of Jewish Book Week on Sunday, March 1 - and Eshkol Nevo have made the list of 16 authors, chosen from 126 contenders.
The award, of a £10,000 prize and a limited magnum of Taittinger Champagne, goes to a work of fiction by a living author, translated into English and published in the UK in the past year. Yehoshua's "Friendly Fire" and Nevo's "Homesick" were both published in Hebrew some years ago, but were only translated - by Stuart Schoffman and Sondra Silverston respectively - last year.
Eshkol Nevo said: "I am very pleased at the nomination and I feel that it's a great compliment and honour. This is my first book to have been translated and published in Britain, where its reception has been both surprising and heartwarming."