Apologies for the long title to the blog post but the title to Cao Naiqian’s novel requires such length.

The reason for the headline is thatThere’s Nothing I Can Do When I Think of You Late at Night was named to the fiction longlist for the Best Translated Book of 2010. The finalists for the award will be named on February 16th.

As with last year’s list, the selections for 2010 represent works written in a wide variety of languages. For those looking for new fiction to read this year could do far worse than working through the books from the list.

Cao’s novel was the only book translated from Chinese to be represented this year on the longlist. This is not surprising given the paltry number of books translated into English from Chinese this past year. In a post entitled 1.4 billion Chinese. 300 million Americans. 10 measly books, published on Paper Republic, Cindy Carter laments the lack of new translations. Based on a translation database compiled by Three Percent, the post reveals that there were “7 contemporary Chinese novels translated into English for the American literary marketplace in 2009. Seven. Books. From China. To America.”