International Booker Prize reveals 13-book longlist for best fiction translated to English
The annual award celebrates international fiction titles that have been translated into English
Thirteen titles from around the world, including Japan, Romania and India, have made the longlist for the 2025 International Booker Prize.
The annual award celebrates the best works of fiction from around the world that have been translated into English and published in the U.K. or Ireland. The £50,000 (approx. $90,305 Cdn) grand prize is divided equally between writer and translator.
The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages — which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain — and to salute the underappreciated work of literary translators.
There are no Canadian books on the longlist. All the authors are nominated for the prize for the first time, but three of the translators have been longlisted before, including Sophie Hughes, translator of Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, who has now made the list five times.
The complete 13-book longlist is:
- The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
- On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J Haveland
- There's a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert
- Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter
- Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches
- Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson
- Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton
- Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda
- Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles
- Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes
- Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
- On a Woman's Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott
- A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson
The books were selected by a five-person jury chaired by English writer and editor Max Porter.
"Translated fiction is not an elite or rarefied cultural space requiring expert knowledge; it is the exact opposite," said Porter in a press statement. "It is stories of every conceivable kind from everywhere, for everyone. It is a miraculous way in which we might meet one another in all our strangeness and sameness and defy the borders erected between us."
Joining Porter on the jury is Nigerian-British writer, director and photographer Caleb Femi, Sana Goyal, editor and publishing director of Wasafiri literary magazine, Korean novelist and translator Anton Hur and English musician Beth Orton.
"As we searched for our longlist amongst the 154 books submitted, we marvelled at what the world was thinking," said Porter. "How are people making sense of these times using the novel as a vehicle for thought and feeling? And how are translators taking these books and — in English — making them sing or scream?
"The books on our unconventional longlist provide a wildly energising and surprising range of answers. We hope they will exhilarate and engage a worldwide community of readers."
Books published in the U.K. or Ireland between May 1, 2024 and April 30, 2025 were eligible for this year's prize. Authors of any nationality are eligible. Publishers submitted 154 books for consideration.
The shortlist will be announced on April 8 and the winner will be announced on May 20.
Last year's winner was German author Jenny Erpenbeck for Kairos, the story of a tangled love affair during the final years of East Germany's existence, translated by Michael Hofmann.
With files from the Associated Press
