Read extracts from the International Booker Prize 2026 shortlist

‘King of kings they called him, and they said, We rejoice in him, we rejoice in his wife and her beauty; they said, We love this country, and then we said, We love this country. We had to rejoice in his newborn son, for longer than we ever would a birth in our own family, his newborn son, in the far-off Palace of Flowers.’

‘my brother sends his best says Nemanja’s brother and shoots his gun just once… my father’s warm body tumbles into the dead leaves, his big eyes fixed on him, my father’s big eyes locked into Nemanja’s brother’s eyes, his strong hands grab my father and turn him to the setting sun’ 

‘Why am I in this car? I’ll sit still. Sometimes, if you don’t move, your memory comes back. But it’s not working. One thing is certain, the driver is smoking. The vehicle is filled with heavy smoke. My eyes are burning. I feel sick.’

‘Little is left, men or animals. Hoes and sickles lie where they were dropped, in the corners of fields dried up for lack of rain. A narrow, stinking creek provides water, but it dwindles visibly day by day, sucked dry by the fierce heat evaporating it, making the air humid and heavy.’ 

‘When my daughters turned twelve I initiated them into the mysterious powers. Mysterious not so much in that they didn’t know those powers existed, or in that I’d kept them secret (I hid nothing from my daughters, since we were of the same sex)’

‘“Hold on. What’s going on here?” I couldn’t help but voice the thought out loud. For, in that moment, I seemed to have been transported back into the midst of Shōkyokusai Tenkatsu’s Magic Troupe. I’d crossed paths with Tenkatsu’s troupe long ago, before I’d started high school.’