The first international Booker prizewinner, Ismail Kadare, heads the longlist for the 2007 Independent foreign fiction prize. The Albanian novelist's latest book, a dark political thriller set in the twilight of Enver Hoxha's dictatorship called The Successor, is nominated as part of a longlist for the £10,000 award which spans the globe.
Also on a longlist with an unprecedented 20 titles are Elif Shafak, who was acquitted last year of "insulting Turkishness", Spanish writer Javier Maras, Italian author Niccolo Ammaniti and Kenyan exile, Ngugi wa Thiong'o.
Ma Jian's collection of brutally lyrical short stories, Stick Out Your Tongue, is also nominated alongside Javier Cercas's tricksy Euronovel, The Speed of Light.
"It is testimony to the outstanding quality of this year's entries that the longlist approved by our distinguished panel of judges is so unusually long," said the Arts Council England's senior strategy officer for literature, John Hampson. "The judges face a formidable challenge in reducing these twenty titles to a shortlist of just six at their next meeting, in early March."
Translators of longlisted works will be following the judges' deliberations closely as well. The Independent prize is unusual in dividing the prize equally between authors and translators.
The judges for this year's prize are the literary editor of The Independent, Boyd Tonkin, the poet David Constantine, the novelist Ali Smith, the writer and editor Jennie Erdal, and the Arts Council England literature officer, Kate Griffin.
Last year's prize was won by Per Petterson and Anne Born for his fifth novel, Out Stealing Horses.
My Father's Notebook by Kader Abdolah translated by Susan Massotty published by Canongate
The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa translated by Daniel Hahn published by Arcadia Books
Steal You Away by Niccolò Ammaniti translated by Jonathan Hunt published by Canongate
The Speed of Light by Javier Cercas translated by Anne McLean published by Bloomsbury
The Moldavian Pimp by Edgardo Cozarinsky translated by Nick Caistor published by Harvill Secker
The Story of Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist translated by Tina Nunnally published by Harvill Secker
The Old Child by Jenny Erpenbeck translated by Susan Bernofsky published by Portobello
Just Like Tomorrow by Faïza Guène translated by Sarah Adams published by Chatto & Windus
Four Walls by Vangelis Hatziyannidis translated by Anne-Marie Stanton-Ife published by Marion Boyars
The Successor by Ismail Kadare translated by David Bellos published by Canongate
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian translated by Flora Drew published by Chatto & Windus
Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream by Javier Marías translated by Margaret Jull Costa published by Chatto & Windus
Vienna by Eva Menasse translated by Anthea Bell published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson
Wizard of the Crow by Ngugi wa Tihong'o translated by Ngugi wa Thong'o published by Harvill Secker
Havana Black by Leonardo Padura translated by Peter Bush published by Bitter Lemon Press
A Thousand Rooms of Dream and Fear by Atiq Rahimi translated by Sarah Maguire and Yama Yari published by Chatto & Windus
Seeing by José Saramago translated by Margaret Jull Costa published by Harvill Secker
The Gaze by Elif Shafak translated by Brendan Freely published by Marion Boyars
Shyness and Dignity by Dag Solstad translated by Sverre Lyngstad published by Harvill Secker
Grace by Linn Ullmann translated by Barbara Haveland published by Picador