International Booker Prize 2026: A reader’s guide to the 13 titles in translation on the longlist

All information related to the books sourced from publishers.

The 2026 International Booker Prize longlist was announced on February 24.

This year’s jury is being chaired by author Natasha Brown. She is joined by writer, broadcaster and Oxford University Professor of Mathematics and for the Public Understanding of Science Marcus du Sautoy; International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sophie Hughes; writer, Lolwe editor and bookseller Troy Onyango; and novelist and columnist Nilanjana S Roy.

The prize “recognises a vital work of translation”, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the winning author and translator. The shortlist of six books will be announced on March 31. Each shortlisted title will be awarded a prize of £5,000, divided equally between the author and translator.

The winner will be announced on May 19 at the Tate Modern, London.

The books on the longlist feature a queer Argentinian conquistador, a morally compromised German film director, a “sworn virgin” who renounces womanhood, a child-star-turned-thief, a Japanese novelist with a “monstrous appetite”, an idiosyncratic Italian aristocrat and a Danish noblewoman accused of sorcery. The stories are set between a brutal prison colony in a remote corner of Brazil to an Albanian village ruled by ancient laws, from an asylum for traumatised soldiers in Belgium to an abundant garden...

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