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Film still from International Booker Prize shortlist films.
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Dua Lipa and other stars read from the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist

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Watch David Jonsson, Eleanor Tomlinson, Tobias Menzies, Anya Chalotra, Antonia Thomas and Dua Lipa read extracts from the six books on the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist in these extraordinary films

For the fourth time in three years, we have commissioned Sharon Horgan’s award-winning production company Merman to produce a series of films to showcase our shortlist. The new films feature six of the UK’s best known performers reading extracts from the six books on the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist.

The films are directed by Charlotte Hamblin and will be shown at the winner ceremony on 21 May.

Dua Lipa reads from The Details

About the book and performer

About the book:

In Ia Genberg’s The Details (translated by Kira Josefsson), a famous broadcaster writes a forgotten love letter; a friend abruptly disappears; a lover leaves something unexpected behind; and a traumatised woman is consumed by her own anxiety. In the throes of a high fever, a woman lies bedridden. Suddenly, she is struck with an urge to revisit a particular novel from her past. Inside the book is an inscription: a message from an ex-girlfriend. Pages from her past begin to flip, full of things she cannot forget and people who cannot be forgotten. Johanna, that same ex-girlfriend, now a famous TV host. Niki, the friend who disappeared all those years ago. Alejandro, who appears like a storm in precisely the right moment. And Birgitte, whose elusive qualities shield a painful secret. Who is the real subject of a portrait, the person being painted or the one holding the brush?

About the performer:

Three-times Grammy and seven-times Brit Award-winning global pop powerhouse Dua Lipa has found superstar status on stage and off, thanks to her many passions outside of music. 2022 saw Lipa launch Service95, a global style, culture and society editorial platform that comprises a weekly newsletter, the Service95 book club and the Dua Lipa: At Your Service podcast, which has been lauded by the Sunday Times and Guardian, and was named one of the Best Podcasts of 2022 by Spotify. Lipa has a total of 10 Grammy nominations, with three wins for Best Pop Vocal Album, Best New Artist and Best Dance Recording. Across platforms globally, she has amassed over 38 billion streams and holds the record for having the top two most streamed albums by a female artist of all time on Spotify.

David Johnson reads from Not a River

About the book and performer

About the book:

Selva Almada’s Not a River, translated by Annie McDermott, is the finest expression yet of her compelling style and singular vision of rural Argentina. 

Three men go out fishing, returning to a favourite spot on the river despite their memories of a terrible accident there years earlier. As a long, sultry day passes, they drink and cook and talk and dance, and try to overcome the ghosts of their past. But they are outsiders, and this intimate, peculiar moment also puts them at odds with the inhabitants of this watery universe, both human and otherwise. The forest presses close, and violence seems inevitable, but can another tragedy be avoided?

About the performer:

David Jonsson, a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2023, played the lead role in Rye Lane, which was nominated for Outstanding British Film at the Bafta Film Awards. He will next be seen as the co-lead in the Ridley Scott-produced Alien: Romulus film, directed by Fede Alvarez, and in another leading role in Todd Komarnicki’s God’s Spy. On television, he was the lead in BBC’s Agatha Christie adaptation Murder is Easy in December 2023. He also played the role of Gus in the BBC/HBO’s hit series Industry, directed by Lena Dunham, and can also be seen in Fox’s Deep State. His theatre credits include And Breathe (The Almeida) for which he won best actor at the Black British Theatre Awards; Mary Stuart (The Almeida/West End); and Don Juan in Soho (Wyndham’s).

Eleanor Tomlinson reads from Kairos

About the book and performer

About the book:

Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann, tells the intimate and devastating story of the path of two lovers through the ruins of a relationship, set against the backdrop of a seismic period in European history.

Berlin. 11 July 1986. They meet by chance on a bus. She is a young student, he is older and married. Theirs is an intense and sudden attraction, fuelled by a shared passion for music and art, and heightened by the secrecy they must maintain. But when she strays for a single night he cannot forgive her and a dangerous crack forms between them, opening up a space for cruelty, punishment and the exertion of power. And the world around them is changing too: as the GDR begins to crumble, so too do all the old certainties and the old loyalties, ushering in a new era whose great gains also involve profound loss. 

About the performer:

Eleanor Tomlinson can currently be seen as Sylvie in One Day on Netflix. Further recent credits include Evie in The Couple Next Door for Channel 4/Starz, The Outlaws series 1-3 and A Small Light for ABC. She is well known for playing Demelza in five seasons of Poldark and made her feature film debut as a young Sophie in The Illusionistalongside Edward Norton, Jessica Biel and Paul Giamatti. Other notable credits include Colette (directed by Wash Westmoreland), Love, Wedding, Repeat (Netflix), Intergalactic (Sky) and The Nevers (HBO).

Tobias Menzies reads from Mater 2-10

About the book and performer

About the book:

Hwang Sok-yong’s epic, multi-generational Mater 2-10 threads together a century of Korean history.

Centred on three generations of a family of rail workers and a laid-off factory worker staging a high-altitude sit-in, Mater 2-10 vividly depicts the lives of ordinary working Koreans, starting from the Japanese colonial era, continuing through Liberation, and right up to the twenty-first century. It is translated by Sora Kim-Russell Youngjae Josephine Bae. 

About the performer:

Tobias Menzies can currently be seen in the lead role in Manhunt (Apple TV+) and recently starred in the A24 feature You Hurt My Feelings, opposite Julia Louis-Dreyfus. He portrayed the second iteration of Prince Philip in the worldwide Netflix sensation The Crown, a performance which earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor in a Drama Series and won him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. He is known globally for his roles in Starz/Amazon’s hit TV series Outlander (2014–2017) and for playing Edmure Tully in the global phenomenon Game of Thrones (2013–2016). His other screen credits include the Bafta-winning This Way Up (Channel 4) and the Amazon Prime series Modern Love, opposite Sophie Okonedo. 

Anya Chalotra reads from What I'd Rather Not Think About

About the book and performer

About the book:

What I’d Rather Not Think About, Jente Posthuma’s deeply moving exploration of grief, is told in brief, precise vignettes and full of gentle melancholy and surprising humour. It is translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey.

What if one half of a pair of twins no longer wants to live? What if the other can’t live without them? This question lies at the heart of Jente Posthuma’s deceptively simple What I’d Rather Not Think About. The narrator is a twin whose brother has recently taken his own life. She looks back on their childhood, and tells of their adult lives: how her brother tried to find happiness, but lost himself in various men and the Bhagwan movement, though never completely. 

About the performer:

Anya Chalotra is known for her leading role in three seasons of the Netflix global phenomenon The Witcher, in which she stars as Yennefer of Vengerberg. The first season led to her recognition as a Screen International Star of Tomorrow in 2020. Chalotra has also been announced to star in Two Neighbours, opposite Chloe Cherry and Ralph Ineson. A dark comedy set in New York, the film is inspired by Aesop’s fable, Avaricious and Envious. She recently returned to stage at the Almeida in Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War, directed by Rupert Goold. She starred in the leading role, Zula, opposite Luke Thallon. Her other stage roles include Peter Gynt at the National Theatre, The Village at the Theatre Royal Stratford East (2018), and Much Ado About Nothing at The Globe (2017).

 

Antonia Thomas reads from Crooked Plow

About the book and performer

About the book:

Crooked Plow by Itama Vieira Junior (translated by Johnny Lorenz) is a fascinating and gripping story about the lives of subsistence farmers in Brazil’s poorest region. 

Deep in Brazil’s neglected Bahia hinterland, two sisters find an ancient knife beneath their grandmother’s bed and, momentarily mystified by its power, decide to taste its metal. The shuddering violence that follows marks their lives and binds them together forever. 

About the performer:

Antonia Thomas starred as the female lead Dr Claire Brown in four seasons of the hugely successful ABC drama The Good Doctor, opposite Freddie Highmore, and is still well known for her role as Alisha Bailey in E4’s cult sci-fi drama Misfits. Most recently, she has been part of an all-star cast in Channel 4’s crime drama Suspect, and appeared opposite John Boyega in Steve McQueen’s Bafta-nominated Amazon/BBC series Small Axe. She can currently be seen on Netflix in the wildly popular series Lovesick, opposite Johnny Flynn. She will next be seen in Lionsgate supernatural thriller The Bagman, opposite Sam Claflin, and recently starred in Apple TV+ comedy Still Up, opposite Craig Roberts. On the big screen, Thomas first made her mark with a leading performance in Dexter Fletcher’s musical Sunshine on Leith, which she received a 2014 Empire Awards nomination for Best Female Newcomer.