The nominees for this year’s prestigious JQ-Wingate literary prize come from all over the globe, with authors from four continents competing on the shortlist, announced today.

Famous literary figures such as Simon Schama and Ari Shavit, as well as controversial anti-Zionist Ilan Pappé, fell by the wayside as the longlist was cut down from 15 to seven.

Those who reached the shortlist include bestselling Israeli author Zeruya Shalev and young Brazilian novelist Michel Laub, as well as Gary Shteyngart, a specialist in satire.

Ms Shalev received the nomination for her work Remains of Love, a fictional work focusing on a Jerusalem family which has been translated in dozens of languages.

Little Failure, which takes its title from the nickname Mr Shteyngart’s mother gave him, reflects the rise in memoirs on this year’s list, with the Russian-born writer describing his emigration to America in stark, self-deprecating terms.

Mr Laub’s Diary of the Fall is one of three books on this year’s shortlist to deal with ramifications from the Holocaust, together with celebrated texts by Thomas Harding and Hannah Krall.

Completing the nominees are Antony Polonsky’s three-volume study on co-existence, entitled Jews in Poland and Russia, and Dror Burstein’s Netanya, a cosmological meditation taken on an Israeli beach.

Professor Eva Hoffman, who teaches at Kingston University, said: “This year’s longlist had enough excellent books on it to promote – and provoke – vigorous debate, as we struggled to winnow it down to the requisite smaller number.

“Our long shortlist reflects the internationalism of contemporary Jewish literature, and its ability to combine specifically Jewish concerns with varieties of cultural experiences (from the American immigrant memoir, to the history of various forms of Polish-Jewish coexistence), as well as universal themes which give all good literature its power and reach.’”

The winner and recipient of the £4,000 prize, which is given to the author who best translates the idea of Jewishness to their audience, will be announced on March 4 at JW3 community centre.