The International Booker Prize has released a longlist of 13 books for its 2026 edition.
The books include:
‘Taiwan Travelogue’ by Yang Shuang-zi, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King.
‘The Wax Child’ by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken.
‘Women Without Men’ by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh.
‘The Witch’ by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump.
‘The Duke’ by Matteo Melchiorre, translated from Italian by Antonella Lettieri.
‘On Earth As It Is In Beneath’ by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan.
‘The Director’ by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin.
‘She Who Remains’ by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel.
‘Small Comfort’ by la Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson.
‘The Deserters’ by Mathias Enard, translated from French by Charlotte Mandell.
‘The Remembered Soldier’ Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay.
‘We Are Green and Trembling’ by Gabriela Cabezon Camara, translated from Spanish by Robin Myers,
‘The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran’ by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin.
The list was made by a five-man jury comprising Oxford University Professor of Mathematics and for the Public Understanding of Science, Marcus du Sautoy; International Booker Prize shortlisted translator, Sophie Hughes; Writer, ‘Lolwe’ Editor and Bookseller, Troy Onyango; award-winning novelist and columnist, Nilanjana S. Roy, and the Chair and award-winning author Natasha Brown.
According to the prize, the longform fiction and short stories collections, chosen from 128 entries, feature themes ranging from witchcraft to warfare, resilience to cruelty, magic to murder, and revolution to renewal, and offer explorations of the human capacity to endure, resist or reinvent themselves, and to remain hopeful in challenging times. They transport readers from a brutal prison colony in a remote corner of Brazil to an Albanian village ruled by ancient laws, from an asylum for traumatised soldiers in Belgium to an abundant garden on the outskirts of Tehran.
Founded in 2005, as a sister prize to the Man Booker Prize, the International Booker Prize is awarded to the best work of fiction (long-form or short story collections) translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.
The Best story wins £50,000, which is shared equally between the author and the translator. Each shortlisted entry is awarded £5,000, divided equally between the author and the translator.
The International Booker Prize 2026 will be awarded to fiction titles published between May 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026. The shortlist of five will be released on March 31, 2026, and the winning book will be announced on May 19, 2026.
