A novel about a woman grieving her twin and another tracing North and South Korean history through a family of railway workers are among the six titles nominated for this year’s International Booker Prize, the prestigious award for fiction translated into English. Translated from German by Michael Hofmann, Erpenbeck’s book is about a torrid affair between a student and a 50-something novelist in communist East Germany. Dwight Garner, reviewing “Kairos” for The New York Times, said it was a “beautiful bummer” of a novel, in which a reader could wallow. The other shortlisted titles include Itamar Vieira Junior’s “Crooked Plow,” translated from Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz. Anderson Tepper, in a review for The New York Times, said that “Vieira provides a compelling vision of history’s downtrodden and neglected.”

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Persons: Booker, Jenny Erpenbeck, Erpenbeck, “, ”, Michael Hofmann, Dwight Garner, Kairos, Itamar Vieira Junior’s, Johnny Lorenz, Anderson Tepper, “ Vieira Organizations: Booker Prize, The New York Times Locations: East Germany