A taut, spare sociological novel about the emptiness of contemporary existence – scathing and affecting in equal measure
Translated by Sophie Hughes
Sophie Hughes
International Booker Prize 2026 judge
- Prizes judged
Sophie Hughes is a literary translator from Spanish and Italian, and is the most nominated translator in the International Booker Prize’s 10-year history
Hughes is the translator of more than 20 novels by authors such as Fernanda Melchor, Alia Trabucco Zerán and Enrique Vila-Matas. She has been shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award, and the Valle Inclán Prize, and in 2021 she was awarded the Queen Sofía Translation Prize. Her translations have been longlisted or shortlisted for the International Booker Prize five times. Her most recent nomination was her translation of Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection (shortlisted in 2025).
Her translations and writing have been published in McSweeney’s, the Guardian, the Paris Review, the White Review, Frieze and the New York Times. She has also worked with the Stephen Spender Trust to promote translation in schools and is the co-editor of the anthology Europa28: Writing by Women on the Future of Europe, published in 2020 in collaboration with Hay Festival.
She lives in Trieste, and is a judge for the International Booker Prize 2026, which this year is supported by Bukhman Philanthropies.
All nominated books
Intense, intelligent and extraordinarily sensitive, Alia Trabucco Zerán’s remarkable debut presents a new way to count the cost of generational trauma
Translated by Sophie Hughes
Fernanda Melchor’s formidable portrait of Mexico and its demons, written with a brutal lyricism that is as affecting as it is enthralling
Translated by Sophie Hughes
A masterpiece of metafiction, Mac and His Problem is Enrique Vila-Matas’s testament to the power and playfulness of great literature
Translated by Margaret Jull Costa, Sophie Hughes
Written in a chilling torrent of prose by one of Mexico’s most thrilling new writers, Paradais explores the explosive fragility of Mexican society
Translated by Sophie Hughes
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