Image taken from themanbookerprize.com

London, April 12 (CNA) The Stolen Bicycle, the English translated version of the Chinese-language novel "單車失竊記" by Taiwanese writer Wu Ming-Yi (吳明益), failed to make it onto the shortlist for the 2018 Man Booker International Prize unveiled Thursday.

Organized by the U.K.-based Booker Prize Foundation, the prize rewards the finest work in translated fiction from around the world published in the U.K. and available in English.

The Stolen Bicycle, translated by Darryl Sterk, became the first work by a Taiwanese writer to be nominated for the prestigious prize when it appeared on the longlist of 13 novels published by the organizer on March 12.

The six novels named on the shortlist announced Thursday were: Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes (France), The White Book by Han Kang (South Korea), The World Goes On by László Krasznahorkai (Hungary), Like a Fading Shadow by Antonio Muñoz Molina (Spain), Frankenstein in Baghdad by Ahmed Saadawi (Iraq) and Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (Poland).

The winner of the 2018 prize will be announced on May 22.

The £50,000 prize (US$71,144) is divided between the author and the translator of the winning entry. In addition, the shortlisted authors and translators receive £1,000 each, according to the organizer.

The Man Booker International Prize was established in 2005, biannually rewarding an author for a body of work originally written in any language as long as it was widely available in English.

From 2016, the prize became a translation prize, awarded annually for a single work of fiction, translated into English and published in the U.K.

The prize is sponsored by Man Group, an active investment management firm which also sponsors the Man Booker Prize for Fiction.

(By Tai Ya-chen and Y.F. Low)
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