Han Kang’s The Vegetarian has been voted the favourite International Booker Prize winner of the last decade, securing nearly one-third of the total vote.
In a public poll marking the 10th anniversary of the award in its current format, almost 10,000 readers cast ballots to select their most cherished title from the prize’s recent history.
The 2016 winner, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith, was the first book to receive the award after it transitioned to an annual prize for a single work of fiction. Published by Portobello, an imprint of Granta, the novel was praised by voters for its “daring questioning of ideologies” and “uncompromising prose” regarding gender, autonomy and domestic violence.
The poll results come as past winners and industry leaders reflect on the prize’s transformative impact on the global literary market. Translator Deborah Smith noted that the 2016 win triggered massive print runs for the original Korean text and shifted cultural conversations regarding the politics of translation.
Authors from across the decade report that the “Booker effect” has fundamentally altered their careers. David Diop, 2021 winner, credited the award for his novel At Night All Blood is Black being translated into languages such as Tamil, Yoruba and Farsi. Similarly, 2023 winner Georgi Gospodinov remarked that while his work was already available in translation, the prize caused the door to “swing wide open” for Bulgarian literature.
Publishers have highlighted a significant shift in consumer appetite for translated works. Bella Lacey, Managing Director at Granta, stated that the prize has definitively proven to booksellers that readers are “hungry for good writing,” regardless of its original language. Adam Freudenheim of Pushkin Press added that the prize provides a vital “legitimizing instance” that ensures translated titles are reviewed more widely and stocked more prominently.
The 10-year retrospective concludes with 2025 winners Banu Mushtaq and Deepa Bhasthi, whose novel *Heart Lamp* continues to experience international growth. Mushtaq observed that voices once limited by borders now “cross with ease,” cementing the award’s reputation as the premier global platform for translated fiction.
The International Booker Prize was restructured in 2016 to join forces with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Under its current rules, the £50,000 award is split equally between the author and the translator, a move designed to elevate the status of translators within the publishing industry.
