‘Energising’ longlist for the International Booker Prize 2025 ‘shows what the world is thinking’

The 2025 longlist for the International Booker Prize, the world’s most influential award for translated fiction, is announced today, Tuesday, 25 February

The longlist of 13 books – 11 novels and two collections of short stories – has been chosen by the 2025 judging panel, chaired by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter. Porter is joined by prize-winning poet, director and photographer Caleb Femi; writer and Publishing Director of Wasafiri Sana Goyal; author and International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Anton Hur; and award-winning singer-songwriter Beth Orton.

Published 25 February 2025 - 14:00 GMT

The judges’ selection features:

13 authors making their International Booker Prize debut, including three with their first books and eight with their first English-language publications
Three previously longlisted translators, including one who is nominated for a record-breaking fifth time
Authors who are literary sensations and award-winners in their home countries and beyond
A classic of queer literature, first published in Dutch 43 years ago, marking the longest gap between an original-language publication and International Booker Prize longlisting
The first volume in a planned septology, originally self-published before becoming a word-of-mouth phenomenon in Denmark
Big themes in compact form, with 11 out of the 13 books under 250 pages, and eight under 200
Books translated from 10 original languages, including, for the first time, Kannada which is spoken by approximately 38 million people as a first language, and Romanian
Authors and translators representing 15 nationalities across five continents, with Romanian and Surinamese-Dutch writers and an Iraqi translator featuring for the first time
11 independent publishers behind 12 of the titles on this year’s longlist – the highest number ever
‘Stories for everyone … that bring us into the agony of family, workplace or nation-state politics, the near-spiritual secrecy of friendship, and the inner architecture of erotic feeling’, according to Max Porter, Chair of the 2025 judges

The International Booker Prize judges — The International Booker Prize 2025 judges, Anton Hur, Beth Orton, Caleb Femi, Max Porter and Sana Goyal
*© Neo Gilder for the Booker Prize Foundation*

The books on this year’s longlist are as follows:

The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland  
There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert  
Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter 
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches 
Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson  
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton 
Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda 
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles 
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes 
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi  
On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott 
A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson

The selection celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2024 and 30 April 2025, as judged by the 2025 panel. The judges chose their longlist from 154 books submitted by publishers – the highest number since the prize was launched in its current format in 2016.

Ranging from sexual desire and disability to the disappearance of Palestinian people; from the weight of family history to the intensity of lifelong friendship; from body horror to AI ‘mothers’; from migrant distress calls during a deadly small boat crossing to streetwise, witty short stories chronicling the lives of a group of Mexican women; from stories spanning thousands of years to one revisiting a single day, the longlist packs big themes into short books: 11 on the longlist are under 250 pages; eight under 200; with the shortest at 97 pages, and only one breaking the 300-page ceiling, coming in at 627 pages.

The International Booker Prize recognises the vital work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the winning author and translator/s. In championing works from around the world that have originated in a wide range of languages, it fosters an engaged global community of writers and readers whose experiences and interests transcend national borders.

To coincide with the longlist announcement, the Booker Prize Foundation has launched its International Booker Prize 2025 campaign, ‘A feast of fiction from around the world’, which will feature a series of engaging videos to introduce readers to the books and the judges. Watch here.

Max Porter, International Booker Prize 2025 Chair of judges, says:

‘Translated fiction is not an elite or rarefied cultural space requiring expert knowledge; it is the exact opposite. It is stories of every conceivable kind from everywhere, for everyone. It is a miraculous way in which we might meet one another in all our strangeness and sameness, and defy the borders erected between us.

‘As we searched for our longlist amongst the 154 books submitted, we marvelled at what the world was thinking. How are people making sense of these times using the novel as a vehicle for thought and feeling? And how are translators taking these books and – in English – making them sing or scream? The books on our unconventional longlist provide a wildly energising and surprising range of answers. We hope they will exhilarate and engage a worldwide community of readers.

‘In these books people are sharing strategies for survival; they are cheating, lying, joking and innovating. Some people are no longer of this earth, or they are sending visions from the future or from parallel universes. These books bring us into the agony of family, workplace or nation-state politics, the near-spiritual secrecy of friendship, the inner architecture of erotic feeling, the banality of capitalism and the agitations of faith.

‘As a group of judges, we’ve been amazed at how differently we read, and we’ve come to adore that difference. We celebrate it, and we joyfully invite readers to join us. Bring your own difference to this list, we guarantee you will find much you recognise, but with any luck more you don’t recognise yet.’

Portrait of Max Porter — Max Porter
*© Betty Bhandari*

Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, adds:

‘The judges of the International Booker Prize 2025 bring richly varied perspectives to their reading and over the last six months have come together under Max’s charismatic leadership to produce a list that’s all the more vital for having been created collectively.

‘The process has taken them on a journey into the unexpected. They’ve read established authors and writers making their debut, experienced translators and novices, long books, short books, romances, historical sagas, family epics and postmodern surprises.

‘The result is a longlist for anyone interested in what it means to be human, in what our planet looks like through the eyes of others, and in the power of fiction to challenge our assumptions and prejudices, and to bring different cultures together.  

‘Throughout, the impact that all these books have had on the judging panel is testament to the care and effort that goes into bringing them to the attention of English-language readers. The International Booker Prize offers a feast of fiction from around the world. Its work is more urgent than ever.’

Word-of-mouth sensations and award winners

The longlist features authors who might be new to English-language readers, with all 13 nominated for the International Booker Prize for the first time; including two authors with debut novels – Hunchback and There’s a Monster Behind the Door – and one with a debut short story collection – Reservoir Bitches; and eight with their first English-language publication – Heart Lamp, Hunchback, On a Woman’s Madness, Perfection, Reservoir Bitches, Small Boat, The Book of Disappearance, and There’s a Monster Behind the Door. But plenty are literary sensations or award winners in their home countries and around the world, including:

Danish author Solvej Balle, who was awarded 2022’s prestigious Nordic Council Literature Prize for On the Calculation of Volume. The book, which was self-published in Denmark by Balle and became a word-of-mouth phenomenon, is part of a septology, which sees the protagonist stuck in the same day. The first three volumes were snapped up in a six-way auction by Faber in the UK.
The original French edition of Gaëlle Bélem’s coming-of-age novel There’s a Monster Behind the Door, which won France’s Grand prix du roman métis, the André-Dubreuil prize of the Société des gens de lettres for a first novel and was among the finalists for the Prix des cinq continents de la francophonie in 2020. Bélem, who is from La Réunion, is also teacher and assistant judge for a juvenile court.
Mircea Cărtărescu has published more than 25 books of poetry, criticism and fiction. His work has received the Formentor Prize (2018), the Thomas Mann Prize (2018), the Austrian State Prize for Literature (2015), and the Vilenica Prize (2011), among many others, and has been translated into 23 languages. Solenoid – a surreal account of history, philosophy and mathematics described by the New York Times as, ‘an instant classic of literary body horror’ – is the longest book on the longlist and won the Dublin Literary Award in 2024.
Vincent Delecroix, a philosopher, who won France’s Grand Prix de Littérature de l’Académie française in 2009 for his entire body of work. Small Boat was longlisted for the 2023 Prix Goncourt and is a 2025 PEN Translates winner, English PEN’s flagship grant programme.
Saou Ichikawa, who has also won the Akutagawa Prize, becoming the first author with a physical disability to do so, as well as the Bungakukai Prize for New Writers. Hunchback, the shortest book on the longlist, an unflinching account of sexual desire and disability, is a bestseller in Japan and has been hailed as one of the country’s most important novels of the 21st century. It has been selected by several UK media outlets as a book of 2025, including BBC News and Radio Times.
Bestselling author Hiromi Kawakami who has won numerous Japanese awards, including the Akutagawa and Tanizaki. Kawakami was also shortlisted with her novel Strange Weather in Tokyo for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2014, which merged with the International Booker Prize in 2016, and for the Man Asian Prize 2013. Critically acclaimed, Under the Eye of the Big Bird has been selected as a book of 2025 by Shortlist.
Swiss author Christian Kracht, who was compared to Bret Easton Ellis and Nick Hornby when his 1995 debut Faserland came out, won Germany’s Wilhelm Raabe Literature Prize in 2012 for his bestselling novel Imperium and the Swiss Book Prize and the Hermann Hesse Award for his 2016 novel, The Dead. His work has been translated into 30 languages. In 2024, Eurotrash was a Times Critic’s Best Book and the Financial Times Best Translated Book.
Banu Mushtaq, who is a major voice within progressive Kannada literature and has won India’s Karnataka Sahitya Academy and Daana Chintamani Attimabbe awards. Heart Lamp, which features 12 stories originally published between 1990 and 2023, won a PEN Presents award in 2024, a scheme from English PEN designed to support and showcase sample translations giving UK publishers access to titles from underrepresented languages and regions.
Astrid Roemer, who received the Prijs der Nederlandse Letteren (Dutch Literature Prize) in 2021, becoming its first Surinamese-Dutch winner. On a Woman’s Madness is a queer literature classic, first published in Dutch 43 years ago, marking the longest period between an original-language publication and International Booker Prize longlisting.
Anne Serre, who won the Prix Goncourt de la Nouvelle in 2022 (for short stories) and is the author of 17 works of fiction. A Leopard-Skin Hat is the fourth of her books to published in English – the other three are The Governesses, The Fool and Other Moral Tales and The Beginners.

Others on the longlist have been nominated for works that reflect an array of human experiences and struggles in our current times, spanning different continents. They include:

Palestinian writer and journalist Ibtisam Azem, who was born and raised in Taybeh, near Jaffa, the city from which her mother and maternal grandparents were internally displaced in 1948, with her critically acclaimed The Book of Disappearance, which imagines what would happen if an entire population of Palestinian people disappeared overnight. It is Azem’s second novel; she has published two other works in Arabic: her debut novel The Sleep Thief in 2011; and a short story collection I Wish I Were a Hoopoe in 2024.
Mexican writer and activist Dahlia de la Cerda, whose debut book Reservoir Bitches is a humorous and gritty collection of short stories following the linked lives of 13 Mexican women – from the all-powerful daughter of a cartel boss to the victim of transfemicide. It is currently being developed as a series by Amazon Studios and Perro Azul.
Italian writer and art critic Vincenzo Latronico, whose satire about the emptiness of contemporary existence, Perfection, is winning plaudits from UK arts media and has been picked as a ‘book of 2025’ in Dazed, Shortlist and AnOther magazine. Although it is Latronico’s first novel to be translated into English, it is his fourth published in Italian. He has also translated several books into Italian by authors such as George Orwell, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Hanif Kureishi.

New and returning translators

Whilst this longlist marks the first time an Iraqi translator is nominated (Sinan Antoon for The Book of Disappearance) there are three translators who have been recognised before. Helen Stevenson (Small Boat) was longlisted in 2017 for Black Moses by Alain Mabanckou and Julia Sanches (Reservoir Bitches) is nominated for the third consecutive year – in 2023 she made the shortlist with her translation of Boulder by Eva Baltasar. Sophie Hughes is longlisted for the fifth time, making her the most nominated translator in the prize’s history, however Perfection is the first book that she has translated from Italian, having previously worked from Spanish. She has been shortlisted twice: in 2019 for The Remainder by Alia Trabucco Zerán and in 2020 for Hurricane Season by Fernanda Melchor.

10 original languages are represented on the longlist: Arabic (The Book of Disappearance), Danish (On the Calculation of Volume I), Dutch (On a Woman’s Madness), French (A Leopard-Skin Hat, Small Boat, There’s a Monster Behind the Door), German (Eurotrash), Italian (Perfection), Japanese (Hunchback, Under the Eye of the Big Bird), Kannada (Heart Lamp), Romanian (Solenoid) and Spanish (Reservoir Bitches). Heart Lamp becomes the first book nominated for the International Booker Prize that was originally written in Kannada, which is spoken predominantly in southern India and is the first language of some 38 million people, with Solenoid the first translated from Romanian.

The list also includes authors representing 10 nationalities: Danish (Solvej Balle), Surinamese-Dutch (Astrid Roemer), French (Gaëlle Bélem, Vincent Delecroix, Anne Serre), Indian (Banu Mushtaq), Italian (Vincenzo Latronico), Japanese (Saou Ichikawa, Hiromi Kawakami), Palestinian (Ibtisam Azem), Romanian (Mircea Cărtărescu), Mexican (Dahlia de la Cerda) and Swiss (Christian Kracht). This is the first time a Romanian author has been longlisted. The translators, meanwhile, represent eight countries: Iraq (Sinan Antoon), France (Laëtitia Saint-Loubert), Brazil (Julia Sanches), Japan (Asa Yoneda), India (Deepa Bhasthi), Scotland (Barbara J. Haveland), England (Polly Barton, Karen Fleetwood, Sophie Hughes, Mark Hutchinson, Helen Stevenson), and the USA (Daniel Bowles, Heather Cleary, Sean Cotter, Lucy Scott).

Independent publishing houses dominate

The list features 11 independent publishers representing 12 titles, the highest number in International Booker Prize history, including Irish publisher Bullaun Press and Leeds-based Small Axes for the first time. Only one book on the longlist is not published by an independent (Hunchback, published by Viking).

What the judges said about the longlisted books

The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
‘Speculative and haunting, this is an exceptional exercise in memory-making and psycho-geography. The premise – the overnight disappearance of all Palestinians – is audacious and shocking.’

On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland  

‘It takes a familiar narrative trope – a protagonist inexplicably stuck in the same day – and transforms it into a profound meditation on love, connectedness and what it means to exist.’

There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert  

‘In prose that throbs with verve, humour and pain, this story set on the island of Réunion brings to life a narrator beset with the history of her family and her people.’

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter 

‘A mind-boggling and ceaselessly entertaining book that seems to be about everything. It transports us from Communist Romania to the far sci-fi reaches of the imagination.’ 

Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches 

‘A blisteringly urgent collection of interconnected stories about contemporary Mexican women. Extremely funny but deadly serious, it absolutely bangs from the first page to the last.’

Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson  
‘After 27 people die when their dinghy capsizes in the Channel, the book’s French narrator attempts to clear her conscience. A gut-punch of a novel that asks: could we all do better?’ 

Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton 

‘Featuring a protagonist who lives in a care home near Tokyo, this unashamed, unflinching and subversive novel defiantly dismantles assumptions about disability and desire.’ 

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda 

‘With crystalline clarity, it tells the story of humanity’s evolution on an epic scale, travelling as far into the future as our imagination could possibly allow.’ 

Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles 

‘The bitterly funny account of a writer driving his crotchety, senile mother through the landscape outside Zurich. One of the most entertaining and moving stories we read.’

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes 

‘An astute, cringe-making and often laugh-out-loud funny portrait of everyday privilege and modern aspirations, following an expat couple in Berlin. Startlingly refreshing.’ 

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi  

‘Exploring the lives of those often on the periphery of society – girls and women in Muslim communities in southern India – these vivid stories hold immense emotional and moral weight.’ 

On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott 

‘A modern classic set in Suriname, and a testament to the resilience of queer lives everywhere. A story of love, survival and freedom, woven with an artistically accomplished touch.’ 

A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson 

‘A deeply romantic yet platonic love story between the narrator and his complicated childhood friend, a story so beautifully realised that the pair become part of the life of the reader.’ 

The Interational Booker Prize 2025 judges — The International Booker Prize 2025 judges
*© Neo Gilder for the Booker Prize Foundation*

The shortlist and winner announcements

The six books shortlisted for this year’s prize will be announced on Tuesday, 8 April 2025. Each shortlisted title will be awarded a prize of £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators).

The announcement of the winning book for 2025 will take place on Tuesday, 20 May 2025 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. The announcement will be livestreamed and the news will also be shared via press release and on the Booker Prizes’ website and social media channels. The winner receives £50,000; £25,000 for the author and £25,000 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators).

Forthcoming events

Shortlist readings, Southbank Centre

An evening of readings from the shortlisted authors and translators will be chaired by Shahidha Bari on Sunday, 18 May 2025, in the Purcell Room at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London. Tickets are available here.

Winner event at Foyles, Charing Cross Road

An event with the winning author and translator will take place at Foyles, Charing Cross Road, on Thursday 22 May 2025 at 7pm. Tickets available soon.

Winner event at the Hay Festival

The prize’s annual visit to the festival occurs at 2.30pm on Saturday, 24 May, when Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood will be joined by one of this year’s judges, author and International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator, Anton Hur, in conversation with the winning author and translator of the International Booker Prize 2025. Tickets available soon.

Audience at the Booker Prize 2023 shortlisted authors reading event, Southbank Centre, London
*© David Parry/Booker Prize Foundation*

PEN Presents x the International Booker Prize

Last year, the Booker Prize Foundation and English PEN launched PEN Presents x the International Booker Prize, to address the underrepresentation of translators from the Global Majority in submissions to the prize and to English PEN’s PEN Translates programme. Judging is currently underway, and this March, 12 scholarships of £500 each will be offered to translators to create a 5,000-word translation sample. A final selection of six winners, announced in May, will be given editorial support and promoted as a showcase to UK publishers, so that more literature in translation, created by more people, reaches English-language readers.

The International Booker Prize’s global impact

The International Booker Prize continues to build in global importance each year. The winning author and translator can expect a worldwide readership and a significant increase in profile and sales, including in the author’s home country.

The prize has helped to drive a boom in translated fiction in the UK, with print sales in 2023 reaching a record £26m, up by 12% on the previous year, according to Nielsen BookData. This is largely down to younger readers, with almost half of translated fiction in the UK bought by under-35s. The prize’s influence also extends to other awards, with five authors recognised by the International Booker Prize going on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The announcement of the 2024 winner, Kairos, written by Jenny Erpenbeck and translated from German by Michael Hofmann, was reported in over 2,500 news articles around the world.

According to Granta Books, the UK publisher of Kairos, sales of the paperback increased by 442% in the week after winning the International Booker Prize 2024 and it outperformed all previous winners for the first month post-win. Prior to the winner announcement in May 2024, it had sold 10,000 copies across all editions; since, it has sold over 80,000 copies. Granta Books has sold 30,000 of these copies through UK retailers, a 17% increase in sales of the 2023 winner over the same period. Prior to its longlisting, translation rights to Kairos had been sold to 16 territories; that has now increased to 32 territories.

In Germany, Erpenbeck and Hofmann’s home country, the original edition of Kairos sold out at many booksellers the day after its win, rising to the top 20 of the bestseller lists in all editions and reaching number 1 in paperback for the first time since publication. Its German publisher Penguin Verlag reports that before it had won the International Booker Prize in May 2024, it had sold just over 50,000 copies across all editions since its publication in 2021; in June 2024, the month after its win, it sold more than 90,000 copies. It has now sold over 230,000 copies.

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