The International Booker Prize has revealed the ‘Booker Dozen’ of 13 novels in contention for the 2021 prize, which celebrates the finest works of translated fiction from around the world.

The prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators.The contribution of both author and translator is given equal recognition, with the £50,000 prize split evenly between them. This year the judges considered 125 books.

Chair of the 2021 International Booker Prize judging panel, Lucy Hughes-Hallett, says: ‘In a year when we could scarcely leave our own houses, we judges have been crossing continents, transported by our reading. Every book we’ve read is unique. However a theme does emerge – migration, the pain of it, but also the fruitful interconnectedness of the modern world.’

Below are the thirteen longlisted books for the 2021 International Booker Prize.

• I Live in the Slums by Can Xue, translated from Chinese by Karen Gernant & Chen Zeping

• At Night All Blood is Black by David Diop, translated from French by Anna Mocschovakis

• The Pear Field by Nana Ekvtimishvili, translated from Georgian by Elizabeth Heighway

• The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enríquez, translated from Spanish by Megan McDowell

• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, translated from Spanish by Adrian Nathan West

• The Perfect Nine: The Epic Gikuyu and Mumbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, translated from Gikuyu by the author

• The Employees by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken

• Summer Brother by Jaap Robben, translated from Dutch by David Doherty

• An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky, translated from German by Jackie Smith

• Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, translated from Arabic by Elisabeth Jaquette, Fitzcarraldo Editions

• In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, translated from Russian by Sasha Dugdale

• Wretchedness by Andrzej Tichý, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley

• The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated from French by Mark Polizzotti

The shortlist of six books will be announced on 22 April, with the winner to be revealed on 2 June. Find out more about the International Booker Prize here.