Everything you need to know about the International Booker Prize 2026 longlist

The 13 nominated books are: 
 

• The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin, published by Scribe UK
• We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from Spanish by Robin Myers, published by Harvill  
• The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from Dutch by David McKay, published by Scribe UK
• The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated from French by Charlotte Mandell, published by Fitzcarraldo Editions
• Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson, published by Wildfire
• She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel, published by Peirene Press
• The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin, published by riverrun
• On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan, published by Charco Press
• The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated from Italian by Antonella Lettieri, published by Foundry Editions
• The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump, published by MacLehose Press
• Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from Persian by Faridoun Farrokh, published by Penguin International Writers
• The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from Danish by Martin Aitken, published by Viking
• Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Taiwanese Mandarin by Lin King, published by And Other Stories 

Between them, the 26 authors and translators represent 14 countries and four continents, while the books are translated from 11 languages.

Two of the books were published in their original languages in the previous century. The Witch was published in French in 1996, while Women Without Men was published in Persian in 1989 – a gap of 37 years between original publication and International Booker Prize recognition. Another book on the list, Taiwan Travelogue, masquerades as a translation of a rediscovered text from a Japanese novelist in the 1930s, yet was first published – in Taiwanese Mandarin – in 2020. 

The longlist celebrates some of the biggest names in global fiction, as well as authors who are likely to be new to many anglophone readers. As well as three debut novels (The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, Matteo Melchiorre’s The Duke and Rene Karabash’s She Who Remains), it features six authors who have been nominated for the International Booker Prize previously (Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, Mathias Énard, Ia Genberg, Daniel Kehlmann, Marie NDiaye and Olga Ravn), and seven previously nominated translators (Ruth Martin, David McKay, Charlotte Mandell, Kira Josefsson, Ross Benjamin, Jordan Stump and Martin Aitken).  

Five of the author/translator pairings have been nominated for the International Booker Prize before: Marie NDiaye and Jordan Stump in 2016; Mathias Énard and Charlotte Mandell in 2017; Daniel Kehlmann and Ross Benjamin in 2020; Olga Ravn and Martin Aitken in 2021; and Ia Genberg and Kira Josefsson in 2024. 

Of The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran, our judges said, ‘The pages pulse with heartache and humour’, while they described We Are Green and Trembling as being ‘at once playful and devastating, tender and enraging’.  

They said that the big question at the heart of The Remembered Soldier (a ‘superb novel’) is: ‘how far will humans go in order to love?’ and they described the language in The Deserters as ‘both raw and refined’, as it ‘weaves together two contrasting stories of hope and survival’.  

They felt that the writing in Small Comfort ‘zings in all the right places’, while She Who Remains is ‘an unforgettable modern fairy tale’. The Director, they said, is ‘a juggling act of wit and gravity’, and On Earth As It Is Beneath is a ‘stark, unsettling exploration of power and corruption’.   

‘Wonderfully evocative and packed full of plot twists’ is how they described The Duke, while they felt The Witch is ‘pure magic’. ‘The language in this novel is exquisite,’ they added. 

Women Without Men beckons the reader ‘into a world touched with fable and myth’, the judges said, and The Wax Child – a ‘haunting, gripping and singular novel’ – ‘cast a spell’ on them. Finally, Taiwan Travelogue was described as ‘both a delicious romance and an incisive postcolonial novel’.

In short, the 2026 longlist takes readers beyond borders and into exciting new territory. As Nilanjana S. Roy, one of this year’s judges, says: ‘Good fiction can take you to interesting places; great fiction takes you to places that are beyond the reach of maps.’