An evening with the quality

This evening we went to the presentation of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize at Tate Britain. The winner was "The Armies" by Colombian author Evilio Rosero, translated by Anne McLean, who explained that British publishers often have to take a punt on a novel in a foreign language before they've actually read it. This had never occured to me before but is bleeding obvious when you think about it. Hospitality was provided by Champagne Taittinger of which I can't speak highly enough.