For the last two decades, Rocco – a writer and critic – has been synonymous in the publishing industry with the International Booker Prize, expertly appointing and guiding 15 panels through the judging process. In that time the prize has grown to become the world’s most influential award for translated fiction.  

Rocco worked on the prize from the beginning, when it was the Man Booker International Prize – a biennial prize launched in 2005 for a body of work and open to authors from around the world. She then collaborated with the team at Four Colman Getty, notably Dotti Irving and Truda Spruyt, to oversee the prize’s transition in 2015 to its current form, when it merged with the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize to recognise individual works of fiction translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. As the Booker Prize Foundation gears up to celebrate the tenth anniversary of this iteration of the International Booker Prize in 2026, Rocco’s continued involvement as its Emeritus Director will ensure that the prize benefits from her wide-ranging expertise in the realm of translated fiction.  

‘For almost two decades the International Booker Prize, and all those connected with it, have been the lucky recipients of Fiammetta’s capacious care, wisdom, warmth and intellect. She has not only steered the prize to its current position of immense influence, but also chosen and looked after judges with sensitivity and insight. She is rightly beloved in the cultural world at large as well as by those of us closer to the prize, and I owe her a great deal personally. 

‘Fiammetta steps back from the day-to-day work of the International Booker at a time when the prize is in strikingly good health – with a larger global following and a more consistent international impact than we had initially dared to hope. I’m delighted that she will continue to lend us her knowledge as she takes on the role of the prize’s Emeritus Director.’ 

‘Reading fiction from around the globe is the best way to walk in other people’s shoes and learn how they live, love and dream. Over the past ten years, approximately 1,300 books have been submitted for the International Booker Prize, translated from more than 70 languages. At the core of this open-hearted and generous award is a fundamental idea: that what unites us is stronger than what divides us. The International Booker Prize is a testament to our common humanity and I am immensely proud to have been associated with it.’ 

Rocco, who grew up in Kenya in a Franco-Italian family, has brought an internationalist background to her time overseeing the International Booker Prize. She read Arabic at Oxford and speaks four other languages fluently (English, Italian, French, and Swahili). Her experience of judging literary prizes has helped inform her highly-regarded ability to select, bring together and guide a judging panel through the process with care and finesse. Rocco’s judging credentials include the Samuel Johnson Prize 2003, Booker Prize 2004, Royal Society Science Book Prize 2006, and the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction 2018, for which she chaired the panel. For more than 20 years she was Literary Editor and Chief Culture Writer for The Economist alongside, for most of that time, her work as Administrator of the International Booker Prize. She was on the board of the Edinburgh International Book Festival from 2009 to 2024, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. Rocco is the author of a non-fiction work, The Miraculous Fever Tree: Malaria and the Cure that Changed the World and will now devote time to writing a new book. 

Over the years, audiences have enjoyed her flair for hosting numerous panel events for the prize, and judges of the International Booker Prize have benefited from Rocco’s generosity of spirit, which regularly included the hosting of judging meetings at her home in London.  

Critically acclaimed author Max Porter, who was Chair of judges of the International Booker Prize 2025 and editor of the first winner of the International Booker Prize in 2016, The Vegetarian, comments on Rocco’s impact as Administrator of the International Booker:  

‘Fiammetta Rocco will always be synonymous with the International Booker Prize which she has lovingly and expertly steered for almost 20 years. She has transformed our culture by patiently sculpting this evolving focal point for global conversations around literature. She is the definition of a well-read internationalist cultural icon, as well as a phenomenally insightful, generous, warm-hearted and sensitive person.’ 

Early winners of the Man Booker International Prize were Ismail Kadare, Chinua Achebe, Alice Munro, Philip Roth, Lydia Davis and Laszlo Krasznahorkai. In 2015, after the rules of the original Booker Prize expanded to allow writers of any nationality to enter – as long as their books were written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland – the International Booker Prize evolved to celebrate the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. In championing works from around the world that have originated in a wide range of languages, the prize fosters an engaged global community of writers and readers whose experiences and interests transcend national borders. It recognises the vital work of translation, with the prize money divided equally: £25,000 for the winning author and £25,000 for the winning translator/s, with each shortlisted title awarded £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator/s. As the global influence of the prize has grown, winners of the prize can expect their careers to be transformed.  

Books that have won the prize in its current form have included The Vegetarian by Han Kang (who went on to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024), translated from Korean by Deborah Smith, Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (who went on to win the Nobel in 2018), translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft, The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld, translated from Dutch by Michele Hutchison and Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from German by Michael Hofmann. This year’s winner was Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi and published by And Other Stories – the first collection of short stories to take the prize. It rapidly sold out in the UK in the days after the announcement on 20 May and the publisher reprinted 40,000 copies. The Penguin India English-language edition has held the number one spot on Amazon India for all but a couple of days since the announcement, with almost 50,000 copies sold during May and June (up 367% on March and April). 

As well as acting as Emeritus Director for the International Booker Prize 2026, Rocco will remain on the Booker Prize Foundation advisory committee. The International Booker Prize will continue to be managed by the in-house Booker Prize Foundation team, led by its Chief Executive Gaby Wood, Director of Prizes Hannah Davies and Director of Content Paul Davies. In due course, a new role, Prizes Manager, will be advertised to support the wider in-house team. 

The judges and dates for the International Booker Prize 2026, when the prize will be celebrating the 10^th anniversary of the first winner, will be announced on Tuesday, 24 June 2025.  

Alice Ingall, Communications Manager at the Booker Prize Foundation, at [email protected] / +44 (0)789 909 6299