The International Booker Prize has unveiled its shortlist, spotlighting five novels and one short story collection that redefine storytelling in translation. This year’s lineup, revealed by Brittany Allen on lithub.com, celebrates slim yet potent works—none exceeding 250 pages—penned by authors and translators hailing from Denmark, England, France, Japan, Italy, India and Scotland.
Marking a historic first, all six titles hail from independent presses, signaling a shift in the global literary landscape.
Thematically, survival reigns supreme. As the Booker committee notes, these works grapple with “our indomitable instinct to keep going” amid catastrophe and despair. From Anne Serre’s fragmented A Leopard-Skin Hat (translated by Mark Hutchinson) to Solvej Balle’s time-loop epic On the Calculation of Volume I (translated by Barbara J. Haveland), the shortlist pulses with tales of endurance. Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp (translated by Deepa Bhasthi) offers poignant snapshots of Muslim women in India, while Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection (translated by Sophie Hughes) probes authenticity in Berlin’s expat scene. Hiromi Kawakami’s speculative Under the Eye of the Big Bird (translated by Asa Yoneda) imagines humanity teetering on extinction, and Vincent Delecroix’s Small Boat (translated by Helen Stevenson) delivers a searing moral reckoning on the migrant crisis.
Slim volumes, big ideas and a global diaspora of voices—this year’s shortlist is a testament to the human spirit’s resilience, with the winner to be crowned later this year.
