Everything you need to know about the International Booker Prize 2026 longlist
From witchcraft to warfare, trauma to transformation, resilience to cruelty, this year’s longlist shines a light on a vast range of experiences
The longlist for the International Booker Prize 2026, supported by Bukhman Philanthropies, has been announced, featuring stories of witchcraft, warfare, trauma, transformation and more
The longlist of 13 books, which was announced on Tuesday, 24 February 2026, was chosen by the 2026 judging panel, chaired by award-winning author Natasha Brown. She is joined by writer, broadcaster and 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; and award-winning novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy.
The selection, which was chosen from 128 books submitted by publishers, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026.
The International Booker Prize recognises the vital work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the winning author and translator. The shortlist of six books will be announced on Tuesday, 31 March 2026. Each shortlisted title will be awarded a prize of £5,000 – divided equally between the author and translator.
The announcement of the winning book will take place on Tuesday, 19 May 2026 at a ceremony at Tate Modern, London. The 2026 prize is supported by Bukhman Philanthropies.
The longlisted books travel across continents and centuries. There are bittersweet love stories and dark fairy tales; fictional accounts of historic figures and narratives steeped in magical realism. With themes ranging from witchcraft to warfare, resilience to cruelty, magic to murder, and revolution to renewal, the nominated books offer explorations of our capacity to endure, resist or reinvent ourselves, and to remain hopeful in challenging times.
The books feature memorable characters, including a queer Argentinian conquistador, a morally compromised German film director, a ‘sworn virgin’ who renounces womanhood, a child-star-turned-thief, a Japanese novelist with a ‘monstrous appetite’, an idiosyncratic Italian aristocrat and a Danish noblewoman accused of sorcery. 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.
The judges’ longlist selection features:
The International Booker Prize 2026 longlist
© India Hobson for Booker Prize FoundationNatasha Brown, International Booker Prize 2026 Chair of judges, says:
‘Many of the submitted books examined the devastating consequences of war, which is reflected in our longlist. The list also features petty squabbles between neighbours, mysterious mountain villages, Big Pharma conspiracies, witchy women, ill-fated lovers, a haunted prison, and obscure film references. The page counts range from “pocket-friendly” to “doorstopper”. And while the books’ original publication dates span four decades, each story feels fresh and innovative.
‘The calibre and variety of translated fiction being published in the UK is unbelievable. As judges, we’ve been spoilt for choice during these past eight months reading this year’s 128 submissions. Our discussions are always lively, and we’ve often been surprised by the myriad ways these books engaged us. It is my absolute pleasure to share this sparkling selection of our favourites.’
Chair of the International Booker Prize 2026 judges, Natasha Brown photographed at Poon’s London
© Sophie Davidson for Booker Prize FoundationWhile the books’ original publication dates span four decades, each story feels fresh and innovative
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, adds:
‘This year, the International Booker Prize celebrates its 10th anniversary as a prize for fiction in translation, rewarding authors and translators on an equal basis. In that time, four authors spotlighted by the International Booker Prize for a single book have gone on to win the Nobel Prize for their entire body of work.
‘It’s satisfying to note that each of the past 10 winners has been translated from a different language. And that this year, works originally written in 34 languages were submitted, the highest number in the prize’s history – a sign, perhaps, that translated works from an ever-broader range of original languages are increasingly available to anglophone readers. Fiction buyers seem to be embracing this: sales of translated fiction have doubled since the prize was first awarded in 2016.
‘This year’s longlist, chosen by a wise group of passionate judges in a series of enlightening and always entertaining meetings, features two novels originally published several decades ago. The fact that there is an appetite to publish them in translation now is a cause for celebration.’
superb works of translated fiction longlisted
authors and translators nominated
countries represented
continents covered
original languages translated into English
debut novels
previously nominated author/translator pairings
books published in their original languages in the previous century
Natasha Brown is an English novelist. Her debut novel Assembly (2021) won a Betty Trask award in 2022. Assembly was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, the Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for political fiction, and has been translated into 17 languages. Universality (2025), her second novel, is also an Orwell Prize finalist.
Before writing her novels, she read mathematics at Cambridge University and spent over a decade working in the financial services industry. She was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023 and one of the Observer’s Best Debut Novelists in 2021. She has been described as ‘one of the most intelligent voices writing today’ by the Guardian and as ‘a powerful new voice in British literature’ by the Sunday Times.
Natasha Brown
© Alice ZooMarcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College.
In 2016 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is author of nine books including his most recent, Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity (2025). He has presented numerous radio and TV series including a four-part landmark TV series for the BBC, The Story of Maths, a three-part series, The Code, and programmes with comedians Alan Davies and Dara O’Briain.
He wrote and performed the play I is a Strange Loop, which has been staged at numerous venues, including the Barbican in London. His second play, The Axiom of Choice, toured India in 2024. He works extensively with a range of arts organisations, from The Royal Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival, bringing science alive for the public.
His mathematical research uses classical tools from number theory to explore the mathematics of symmetry. In 2001 he was awarded the Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society and in 2009 he was awarded the Royal Society’s Faraday Prize, the UK’s premier award for excellence in communicating science. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.
Marcus du Sautoy
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the International Booker Prize’s 10-year history.
She is the translator of more than 20 novels by authors such as Fernanda Melchor, Alia Trabucco Zerán and Enrique Vila-Matas. She has been shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, and the Valle Inclán Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the Queen Sofía Translation Prize. Her translations have been longlisted or shortlisted for the International Booker Prize five times. Her most recent nomination was her translation of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection (shortlisted in 2025).
Her translations and writing have been published in McSweeney’s, the Guardian, the Paris Review, the White Review, Frieze and the New York Times. She has also worked with the Stephen Spender Trust to promote translation in schools and is the co-editor of the anthology Europa28: Writing by Women on the Future of Europe, published in 2020 in collaboration with Hay Festival. She lives in Trieste.
Sophie Hughes
© Harry ZundelTroy Onyango is a London-based writer and editor from Kisumu, Kenya, and the founder of Lolwe, a Pan-African literary and arts magazine.
He is also the owner of Lolwe Books, an indie Pan-African bookshop in both Kenya and the UK. His debut collection of short stories, For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings, was published in 2022.
His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Doek!, Wasafiri, Nairobi Noir and Transition, among other publications. He was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and the winner of the inaugural Nyanza Annual Literary Festival Prize. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia (where he was a Miles Morland Scholar) and an MA in African Studies from SOAS University of London.
Troy Onyango
© Danny BaileyNilanjana S. Roy is a novelist and newspaper columnist, and the author of two award-winning fantasy novels, The Wildings (2012) and The Hundred Names of Darkness (2013).
Her third novel and first for adult readers, Black River (2022), is Delhi noir fiction. It was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Roy has also written an essay collection, The Girl Who Ate Books, about her lifelong love of reading, and is the editor of three major anthologies: Our Freedoms (2021), Patriots, Poets & Prisoners: Selections from Ramananda Chatterjee’s The Modern Review (2016), and A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing on Food (2004).
Over two decades as a columnist and literary critic, Roy has written for publications including the Business Standard, the New York Times, the Guardian, and the BBC. She currently writes a column about books and the reading life for the Financial Times. She lives in Delhi, India.
Nilanjana S. Roy
© Gauri Gill 2021
