Group photo of the International Booker Prize 2024 Judges; Romesh Gunesekera, Natalie Diaz, Eleanor Wachtel, William Kentridge and Aaron Robertson.

Get to know the International Booker Prize 2024 judges

Discover more about the judges of the International Booker Prize 2024 – their reading habits, their favourite works of translated fiction and what they are hoping to find among this year's submissions

The panel is chaired by esteemed writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel and includes award-winning poet Natalie Diaz; Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist Romesh Gunesekera; ground-breaking visual artist William Kentridge; and acclaimed writer, editor and translator Aaron Robertson. The 2024 judging panel will be looking for the best work of fiction translated into English, selected from entries published in the UK or Ireland between May 1, 2023 and April 30, 2024.

Meet the judges

Eleanor Wachtel: ‘Literature questions the lines we draw between people and places’

Broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel talks about how British books have a different smell than North American ones and the importance of intuition when selecting books for the longlist

Aaron Robertson: ‘Human translators will have to work alongside AI. Neither is going away’

Aaron Robertson talks about the need for more publicity around translated fiction and how IBP creates a red-carpet moment for literature translated into English

Romesh Gunesekera: ‘Translators are the unsung heroes. It is time to sing their praises’

Author Romesh Gunesekera talks about how his Sri Lankan childhood made him a reader and why the literary canon must diversify

Portrait of William Kentridge with a bright red background.

William Kentridge: '80 percent of the novels I’ve read in my life have been in translation’

Artist William Kentridge talks about reading electronically and how books showed him he could forge a path in the creative industries

The International Booker Prize 2024 judges

Natalie Diaz

Aaron Robertson

Eleanor Wachtel

Romesh Gunesekera

William Kentridge

More on the International Booker Prize 2024

The International Booker Prize 2024

The shortlist has been announced! It features work from six countries, translated from six languages, and ‘interweaves the intimate and political in radically original ways’