The 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist has been announced, recognising six works of fiction by authors from around the world.
The International Booker Prize is the most prestigious literary award for fiction translated into English, and this year's shortlist includes books originally written in German, Bulgarian, Portuguese, French and Mandarin Chinese.
Chair of judges, Natasha Brown, said of the selection:
'With narratives that capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history. While there’s heartbreak, brutality, and isolation among these stories, their lasting effect is energising. Rereading each book, we judges found hope, insight and burning humanity – along with unforgettable characters to whom I’m sure readers will return again and again.'
Discover the six shortlisted, highly recommended books below!
The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran
Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin
A captivating, polyphonic novel of one family's flight from and return to Iran.
Behsad, a young communist revolutionary, fights with his friends for a new order after the Shah's expulsion. He tells of sparking hope, of clandestine political actions, and of how he finds the love of his life in the courageous, intelligent Nahid.
Nahid lives her new life in West Germany with Behsad. With their young children, they spend hour after hour in front of the radio, hoping for news from others who went into hiding after the mullahs came to power.
Laleh returns to Iran with her mother, Nahid. Between beauty rituals and family secrets, she gets to know a Tehran that hardly matches her childhood memories.
Laleh's brother Mo is more concerned with a friend's heartbreak than with student demonstrations in Germany. But then the Green Revolution breaks out in Iran and turns the world upside down …
A topical, moving novel about revolution, oppression, resistance, and the absolute desire for freedom.
She Who Remains
Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel
High in the Accursed Mountains, in a village ruled by the ancient laws of the Kanun, Bekija escapes an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin, renouncing her womanhood to live as a man.
Her decision sets off a brutal chain of events, destroying her family and separating her from the one she loves the most.
Years later, as Bekija – now Matija – tells their story to a visiting journalist, long-buried truths come to light, along with the realization of all that might have been.
Stock expected in May
The Director
Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin
An artist's life, a pact with the devil, a novel about the dangerous illusions of the silver screen.
G.W. Pabst, one of cinema's greatest, perhaps the greatest director of his era: when the Nazis seized power he was filming in France, to escape the horrors of the new Germany he flees to Hollywood. But under the blinding California sun, the world-famous director suddenly looks like a nobody. Not even Greta Garbo, who he made famous, can help him.
And thus, almost through no fault of his own, he finds himself back in his homeland of Austria, which is now called Ostmark. The returning family is confronted with the barbaric nature of the regime. But Goebbels, the minister of propaganda in Berlin, wants the film genius – he won't take no for an answer and makes big promises. While Pabst still believes that he will be able to resist these advances, that he will not submit to any dictatorship other than art, he has already taken the first steps into a hopeless entanglement …
On Earth As It Is Beneath
Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan
On land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered, the state built a penal colony in the wilderness, where inmates could be rehabilitated, but never escape. Now, decades later, and having only succeeded in trapping men, not changing them for the better, its operations are winding down.
But in the prison's waning days, a new horror is unleashed: every full-moon night, the inmates are released, the warden is armed with rifles, and the hunt begins. Every man plans his escape, not knowing if his end will come at the hands of a familiar face, or from the unknown dangers beyond the prison walls.
Ana Paula Maia has once again delivered a bracing vision of our potential for violence, and our collective failure to account for the consequences of our social and political action, or inaction. No crime is committed out of view for this novelist, and her raw, brutal power enlists us all as witness.
Stock expected in May
The Witch
Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump
In a small, sleepy town, a mediocre witch, in a mediocre marriage, tries to pass on her gifts to her twin daughters, who, it becomes immediately apparent, have skills far beyond her own.
Lucie comes from a long line of witches, powers passed down from mother to daughter. Her own mum was formidable in her powers, but ashamed of her magic. Perhaps as a result, Lucie's own gift is weak. Lucie's own children are initiated into their family's peculiar womanhood when they reach twelve years of age, and in a few short months, Maud and Lise are crying the curious tears of blood that denote their magical powers. Having learned, they take off quickly and fly the nest. Literally.
Witty, dreamlike, vaguely unsettling, and utterly enchanting (pun intended), The Witch brings the mysteries of womanhood and motherhood into sharp relief and leaves us teetering on the edge, unbalanced by questions as seemingly unbreakable relationships break down left and right.
Who is to blame for family failures? And how can you – can you? – build a nest that no one wants to fly?
Due for publication mid-April
Taiwan Travelogue
Yáng Shuāng-zi, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King
May 1938. The young novelist Aoyama Chizuko has sailed from her home in Nagasaki, Japan, and arrived in Taiwan. She’s been invited there by the Japanese government ruling the island, though she has no interest in their official banquets or imperialist agenda. Instead, Chizuko longs to experience real island life and to taste as much of its authentic cuisine as her famously monstrous appetite can bear.
Soon a Taiwanese woman – who is younger even than she is, and who shares the characters of her name – is hired as her interpreter and makes her dreams come true. The charming, erudite, meticulous Chizuru arranges Chizuko’s travels all over the Land of the South and also proves to be an exceptional cook. Over scenic train rides and braised pork rice, lively banter and winter melon tea, Chizuko grows infatuated with her companion and intent on drawing her closer.
But something causes Chizuru to keep her distance. It’s only after a heartbreaking separation that Chizuko begins to grasp what the 'something' is.
Stock expected in late April
The 2026 winner of the International Booker Prize will be announced at a ceremony in London on Tuesday 19 May. Find out more about the prize and the shortlist here.
