Stellar longlist announced for this year’s JQ Wingate Prize

David Grossman (above), Howard Jacobson, Edmund de Waal, Antony Julius, Jenny Erpenbeck and the late Tony Judt are among the authors longlisted for this year’s JQ-Wingate prize.

“We thought it wise in this exceptional year to publish our longlist of potential winners” says Lisa Appignanesi, chair of the judging panel, “to aid us in our deliberations and to signal the excellence of the books in play to the public”.

This year’s shortlist will be announced in March, and the overall winner will be revealed at a ceremony in London in June. The titles contending for the prize are:

 Claude Levi Strauss by Partrick Wilcken (Bloomsbury)

 The Dove Flyer by Eli Amir (Halban)

 To the End of the Land by David Grossman (Jonathan Cape)

 The Finkler Question by Howard Jacobson (Bloomsbury)

 Hare with the Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal (Chatto)

 The Life of Irène Némirovsky by Patrick Lienhard and Olivier Philipponnat (Chatto)

 The Memory Chalet by Tony Judt (Heinemann)

 Moses Montefiore by Abigail Green (Harvard University Press)

 Trials of the Diaspora by Anthony Julius (OUP)

 Survivors by Bob Moore (OUP)

 The Arabs and the Holocaust by Gilbert Achcar (Saqi Books)

 The Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck (Portobello)

Previous winners include Amos Oz, David Grossman, Zadie Smith, Imre Kertesz, Oliver Sacks, WG Sebald, Etgar Keret, Fred Wander and Adina Hofman.

Footnote re author photo above:
Israeli author David Grossman photographed for the Observer in Jerusalem. Photograph: Ahikam Seri/Panos Pictures