The International Booker Prize 2023 longlist is announced

•  The oldest writer ever to be longlisted for the prize, with a gap of 54 years between the oldest and youngest authors
• Three writers who appear in English for the first time
• Works originating in 12 countries and translated from 11 languages – including first nominations for books originally written in Bulgarian, Catalan and Tamil 
• A wife and husband author-translator team
• One of Ukraine’s best-known writers 
• A film director, four poets, two former security guards, and a writer who has come back from the dead 
• Elements of Korean fairy tale, French horror, Caribbean gospel, Indian melodrama, Scandinavian saga — and East Germany’s answer to Trainspotting.

Read 13 things you really need to know about the International Booker Prize 2023 longlist. 

Title, original language, author, author nationality, translator, translator nationality, UK Imprint.

• Boulder, Original language - Catalan, author Eva Baltasar (Catalan), translator Julia Sanches (Brazilian), UK imprint - And Other Stories
• Whale, Original language - Korean, author Cheon Myeong-kwan (Korean), translator Chi-Young Kim (Korean/American), UK imprint - Europa Editions
• The Gospel According to the New World, Original language - French, author Maryse Condé (French), translator Richard Philcox (British), UK imprint - World Editions
• Standing Heavy, Original language - French, author GauZ’ (Ivorian), translator Frank Wynne  (Irish), UK imprint -  MacLehose Press
• Time Shelter, Original language - Bulgarian, author Georgi Gospodinov (Bulgarian), translator Angela Rodel (American), UK imprint - Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Is Mother Dead, Original language - Norwegian, author Vigdis Hjorth (Norwegian), translator Charlotte Barslund (British/Danish), UK imprint - Verso Fiction
• Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv, Original language - Russian, author Andrey Kurkov (Ukrainian), translator Reuben Woolley (British), UK imprint - MacLehose Press
• The Birthday Party, Original language - French, author Laurent Mauvignier (French), translator Daniel Levin Becker (American), UK imprint - Fitzcarraldo Editions
• While We Were Dreaming, Original language - German, author Clemens Meyer (German), translator Katy Derbyshire (British/German), UK imprint - Fitzcarraldo Editions
• Pyre, Original language - Tamil, author Perumal Murugan (Indian), translator Aniruddhan Vasudevan (Indian), UK imprint - Pushkin Press
• Still Born, Original language - Spanish, author Guadalupe Nettel (Mexican), translator Rosalind Harvey (British), UK imprint - Fitzcarraldo Editions
• A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding, Original language - Swedish, author Amanda Svensson  (Swedish), translator Nichola Smalley (British), UK imprint - Scribe UK
• Ninth Building, Original language - Chinese, author Zou Jingzhi (Chinese), translator Jeremy Tiang (Singaporean), UK imprint - Honford Star.

‘To read a book translated from another language is to embark on a global adventure. The judges looked closely not just at what the writers and their translators were telling us about the world we live in, but also at how they told us. The panel talked about ideas and emotion in fiction, about form, structure, originality, poetry, ethics, character and the importance of humour. The longlist for the International Booker Prize 2023 leaps from Mexico to Sweden, from Norway to South Korea, from China to Guadeloupe, from Côte d’Ivoire to Ukraine. Through fable and myth, stories and sagas, it proves that reading has no borders.’

Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated from French by Frank Wynne 
‘A sharp and satirical take on the legacies of French colonial history and life in Paris today. Told in a fast-paced, and fluently translated, style of shifting perspectives, Standing Heavy carries us through the decades – from the youthful optimism of the decolonisation of the 1960s to the banal realities of daily shift work on the margins of contemporary consumer society – to deliver a fresh perspective on France that is critical, funny and human.’
 
Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel 
‘A wide-ranging, thought-provoking, macabre and humorous novel about nationality, identity and ageing, and about the healing and destructive power of memory. It asks the question: what is our place in 20th century history, when that history seems to be constantly shifting? “Nostalgia isn’t what it used to be,” they say, and this book shows us – in moving, funny and disturbing ways – how and why.’

Is Mother Dead by Vigdis Hjorth, translated from Norwegian by Charlotte Barslund 
‘This is a dark, chilling book. One of its tricks is to rely on a narrator who is an anti-heroine, and who can be annoying because of her narcissism and her malice. That’s what makes her real and what makes us care about her. This novel provides a very fine and cruel understanding of family relationships: the violence of the mother-daughter dynamic, which reminds us of Marguerite Duras; the impossibility of getting to know each other within the same family; family life as a prison of secrets and silence. Vigdis Hjorth manages to create a lot of suspense – a thriller-like tension – and what is amazing is that you never really know whose side you are on.’

Pyre by Perumal Murugan, translated from Tamil by Aniruddhan Vasudevan  
‘An intercaste couple elopes, setting in motion a story of terrifying foreboding. Perumal Murugan is a great anatomist of power and, in particular, of the deep, deforming rot of caste hatred and violence. With flashes of fable, his novel tells a story specific and universal: how flammable are fear and the distrust of others.’  

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel, translated from Spanish by Rosalind Harvey 
‘Two best friends share an aversion to “the human shackles” of motherhood, only to discover that life has other plans. With a twisty, enveloping plot, the novel poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, and dependence – all in language so blunt it burns.’ 
 
A System So Magnificent It Is Blinding by Amanda Svensson, translated from Swedish by Nichola Smalley 
‘When a set of adult triplets learns that one of them might have been switched in the hospital after their birth, each of them becomes convinced that they are the changeling. Amanda Svensson’s raucous, sprawling debut takes on the enigmas of our origins, riddles of human consciousness and animal cognition, doomsday cults, and the most bedevilling of mysteries – the minds and choices of our closest intimates.’
 
Ninth Building by Zou Jingzhi, translated from Chinese by Jeremy Tiang 
‘A kaleidoscopic and understated collection of interlocking tales of life in an apartment building under the Cultural Revolution – the daily tedium of its inhabitants, lit by brief and tenuous moments of shared humanity.’ 

• GauZ’, Zou Jingzhi and Amanda Svensson are nominated for their first works to appear in English. 
• Three of the translators on the longlist have been nominated for the prize before. Katy Derbyshire was longlisted in 2017 for her translation of Clemens Meyer’s Bricks and Mortar. Frank Wynne was shortlisted in 2018 for his translation of Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes and Nichola Smalley was longlisted in 2021 for her translation of Andrzej Tichý’s Wretchedness.
• Novelists Eva Baltasar, Georgi Gospodinov and Zou Jingzhi, and translator Frank Wynne, are also published poets. 
• Eva Baltasar, who writes in Spanish and Catalan, has published ten volumes of poetry to widespread acclaim. Her debut novel, Permafrost, received the 2018 Premi Llibreter from Catalan booksellers and was shortlisted for France’s 2020 Prix Médicis for Best Foreign Book. 
• Alongside his work as a novelist, Cheon Myeong-kwan is also a screenwriter and film director.
• Maryse Condé, born in Guadeloupe and described by the judges as ‘the great voice of the Caribbean’, dictated The Gospel According to the New World to Richard Philcox, her husband and translator, having lost her sight. At age 89, she is the oldest writer to ever be longlisted for the prize. 
• Ivorian author, editor and photographer GauZ’ moved to Paris as an undocumented student, working as a security guard before returning to Côte d’Ivoire. His novels have won multiple awards, including Le Prix des libraires Gibert Joseph, Prix Éthiophile, and Black Manoo. 
• Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov’s works have been translated into 25 languages and have been shortlisted for more than a dozen international prizes - including the PEN Literary Award for Translation. 
• Vigdis Hjorth is the author of over a dozen prize-winning and best-selling novels. Will and Testament was longlisted for the National Book Award for Translated Literature and won the Norwegian Critics Prize for Literature and the Norwegian Booksellers’ Prize.
• Andrey Kurkov is best known for his novel Death and the Penguin, which has been translated into more than 30 languages and was an international bestseller. In the past year he has been an outspoken critic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Like many Ukrainian writers, he has vowed to stop writing in Russian in response to the invasion. 
• Laurent Mauvignier is the author of 13 novels and has won 11 literary prizes. He has also written several scripts for TV and film.
• Clemens Meyer was longlisted for Bricks and Mortar in in 2017, and is now longlisted for his debut novel, originally published in German in 2006. Like GauZ’, he once worked as a security guard.
• In 2015, Indian author Perumal Murugan declared himself ‘dead’ and announced his retirement from writing following protests, litigation and the burning of his book Maadhorubaagan by caste-based groups. At a court case in 2016 centred on the book, the judge ruled: ‘Let the author be resurrected to what he is best at. Write.’ For Murugan, the statement was both ‘a command and a benediction’ to resume writing. 
• Guadalupe Nettel grew up between Mexico and France. Her work has been translated into more than 15 languages and has appeared in publications such as Granta, El País, The New York Times and La Repubblica.
• At 35, Amanda Svensson is the youngest author on the longlist. She is also a successful translator, and is the Swedish translator of works by Booker Prize shortlisted author Ali Smith. The youngest translator nominated is Reuben Woolley, aged 24.
• Zou Jingzhi is highly regarded as a fiction writer, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. Along with being a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association, he is a resident writer of the Beijing Writers’ Association. 

The six books shortlisted for this year’s prize will be announced by Chair of judges Leïla Slimani in the Tech Theatre at the London Book Fair at 11.00am BST on Tuesday April 18. There is a prize of £5,000 for each of the shortlisted titles: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators).

The winner will be announced at a ceremony held at Sky Garden in London on Tuesday May 23. The winners’ prize purse is £50,000; £25,000 for the author and £25,000 for the translator (or divided equally between multiple translators). 

Shortlist readings, Southbank Centre

An evening of shortlist readings will be mediated by Merve Emre, Associate Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford and regular contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Review of Books on Thursday May 18, 7.30pm, Purcell Room, Southbank Centre.

The 2023 winners at the Hay Festival 

The prize’s annual visit to the festival occurs at 4.00pm on Saturday May 27, when International Booker Prize judge and novelist Tan Twan Eng and Booker Prize Foundation Chief Executive Gaby Wood will be in conversation with the winning author and translator of the International Booker Prize 2023.

The International Booker Prize’s impact

The winner can expect international recognition and a significant uplift in global sales. Last year’s winner, Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell, made history as the first novel translated from any South Asian language to be recognised by the International Booker Prize. The UK edition initially sold 473 copies in the first six months after publication, which increased to over 5,000 copies between the longlist announcement in February and the end of May 2022. In the nine months since its win on May 26 2022 it has sold a further 25,000 copies making it the publisher, Tilted Axis’s, biggest seller. Rights have been sold in a dozen languages and a US edition was recently published by HarperVia.

For media enquiries, please contact:
Premier: [email protected] / Ruby Short, +447710859447

• Longlisted book synopses, press releases, author and translator biographies and images, book jackets and judge images, and social media graphics can be downloaded here
• Media interested in attending the shortlist announcement at the London Book Fair on Tuesday April 18 should contact [email protected].
• Read ‘13 things to know about the 2023 longlist’ on the Booker Prizes website 
• Read an in-depth interview with each of the International Booker Prize 2023 judges 
• Each month the Booker Prizes’ Book of the Month shines a spotlight on a different work of fiction from among the 600+ titles in the Booker Library, through reading guides, extracts, opinion pieces, competitions and discussions on our social channels. March’s Book of the Month is A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, which is recommended by the award-winning singer-songwriter Dua Lipa. In a guest post, Dua Lipa explains how Hanya Yanagihara’s second novel challenged everything she thought she knew about love and friendship.
• The Booker Prizes website, thebookerprizes.com – supported by Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok accounts, as well as a YouTube channel – is a unique online space which showcases the 600+ exceptional books that have won, or been longlisted or shortlisted for the Booker Prize and International Booker Prize. The site aims to be an entertaining and illuminating content destination that combines both practical information about the prizes past and present with fresh and original features to bring the books and their authors to life, encouraging readers new and old to visit and revisit titles in the ‘Booker Library’.
• The Booker Prize – awarded annually in the autumn – is the leading literary award in the English-speaking world. It was first awarded in 1969 and has brought recognition, reward and readership to outstanding fiction for over five decades. It was called the Man Booker Prize for Fiction when sponsored by Man Group from 2002-2018. Each year, the prize is awarded to what is, in the opinion of the judges, the best work of long-form fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland, irrespective of the nationality or citizenship of the author. The winner receives £50,000 as well as the £2,500 awarded to each of the six shortlisted authors. Both the winner and the shortlisted authors are guaranteed a global readership and can expect a dramatic increase in book sales. The winner of the Booker Prize 2022 was The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. The Booker Prize 2023 judging panel is chaired by Esi Edugyan and includes Adjoa Andoh, Mary Jean Chan, James Shapiro and Robert Webb. The longlist will be announced in July 2023.
• Crankstart, a charitable foundation, is the exclusive funder of the Booker Prizes. 
•  Booker Group is the UK’s leading food & drink wholesaler with branches nationwide and a delivery network. It serves over 400,000 catering customers and 100,000 independent retailers.
• Please visit the Notes to Editors page to find out more about the International Booker Prize, Booker Prize, and Booker Prize Foundation, including its trustees, advisory committee, partners and beneficiaries.