International Booker Longlist 2026: Here are all 13 books up for the prestigious literary prize - prize money, shortlist date, judges

Previous winners have included Iris Murdoch, William Golding, Salman Rushdie, Kingsley Amis, Peter Carey, Pat Barker, Margaret Atwood, Yann Martel, and Hilary Mantel.

Originally it was only open to novels written in English by Commonwealth, Irish, and South African (and later Zimbabwean) authors, but in 2014 was opened up to all English-language fiction books.

Read more: A Spy Amongst Us by Marc Mierowsky review: 'detailed and thrilling'

In 2005 the International Booker Prize made its debut. Initially a biennial prize for a body of work, since 2015 it has been awarded annually for a single book written in another language and translated into English.

Last year saw the International Booker go to Heart Lamp by Indian author Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, while David Szalay won the Booker for his novel Flesh.

And yesterday saw the longlist for this year’s International Booker Prize revealed.

Here’s everything you need to know.

Who has been longlisted for the International Booker Prize?

The following books are in the running for the International Booker Prize 2026:

• The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin
• We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from Spanish by Robin Myers
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay
• The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated from French by Charlotte Mandell
• Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
• She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel
• The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin
• On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan
• The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated from Italian by Antonella Lettieri
• The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump
• Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh
• The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
• Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

When will the International Booker Prize shortlist be revealed?

The shortlist of six books will be announced on Tuesday, March 31, with the winning title announced at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday, May 19.

Who are the judges for the International Booker Prize?

A panel of five judges will decide the winner of the Booker Prize 2026. They are as follows:

Natasha Brown (Chair)

Natasha Brown is an English novelist, whose debut novel Assembly won a Betty Trask award in 2022 Assembly, published in 2021, was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, the Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for political fiction, and has been translated into 17 languages. Her second novel, Universality, is an Orwell Prize finalist and was longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025. Before writing her novels, she read Mathematics at Cambridge University and spent over a decade working in the financial services industry.

Marcus du Sautoy

Marcus 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.

Sophie Hughes

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. Hughes 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).

Troy Onyango

Troy Onyango is a London-based writer and editor from Kisumu, Kenya, and the founder of Lolwe, a Pan-African literary and arts magazine. Onyango 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.

Nilanjana S. Roy

Nilanjana S. Roy is a novelist and newspaper columnist. She is the author of two award-winning fantasy novels, The Wildings (2012) and The Hundred Names of Darkness (2013). Roy’s 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).

How much do the Booker International Prize winners receive?

Both the Booker Prize and the Booker International Prize have a cash prize of £50,000 – with the International Booker prize money split equally between writer and translator. Each shortlisted title will also be awarded a prize of £5,000.

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