Max Porter on publishing The Vegetarian: 'Everyone agreed that this was an important book'
Max Porter explains the process behind the publication of The Vegetarian by Han Kang, and why it was essential that it reached new readers
Max Porter
International Booker Prize 2025 judge (Chair)
Max Porter is a bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author
Max Porter’s first novel, Grief Is the Thing with Feathers, won the Sunday Times/Peters, Fraser + Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award and the International Dylan Thomas Prize, among others, as well as being shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Goldsmiths Prize. Lanny was longlisted for the Booker Prize and was a Sunday Times bestseller and Shy was an instant number one bestseller. Porter has written the adapted screenplay of Shy, to be filmed by Netflix in 2024. He has also written The Death of Francis Bacon, The Hill, the short film All of this Unreal Time and the pamphlet It’s Going to Be a Bright New Day. His original drama series The Photographer is playing on BBC Radio 4 now.His work has been translated into 33 languages.
He is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and is a frequent collaborator with, and mentor to, musicians, artists, theatre makers and arts and literacy charities. He was previously Editorial Director at Granta Books, where he published The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton, which won the Booker Prize 2013, and The Vegetarian by Han Kang, winner of the International Booker Prize 2016.
Porter is the Chair of judges for the International Booker Prize 2025.
All nominated books
Max Porter effortlessly combines England's mysterious past and its confounding present in this enchanting and devastating story.
