Other big names such as Romanian Mircea Cartarescu and Swiss Christian Kracht have fallen by the wayside. Now the Danish author is competing against French Vincent Delecroix, Hiromi Kawakami from Japan, Italian Vincenzo Latronico, Banu Mushtaq from India and Anne Serre from France.
Solvej Balle is nominated for the first part of her long novel suite.
The International Booker Prize recognizes both authors and translators who share the prize money, which corresponds to approximately 670,000 kronor. The winner will be revealed on May 20.