The International Booker Prize 2026
The 2026 judging panel for the International Booker Prize, the world’s most influential award for translated fiction, has been announced
The International Booker Prize recognises the vital work of translation, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the winning author and translator/s. Each shortlisted title is awarded a prize of £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator/s.
In championing works from around the world that have originated in a wide range of languages, the prize fosters an engaged global community of writers and readers whose experiences and interests transcend national borders.
Critically-acclaimed author Natasha Brown, one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists, is joined on the judging panel by: writer, broadcaster and Oxford University Professor of Mathematics and for the Public Understanding of Science Marcus du Sautoy; International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator Sophie Hughes; writer, Lolwe editor and bookshop owner Troy Onyango; and award-winning novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy.
Submissions are now open to UK and Irish publishers. This year’s judges are looking for the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026.
In 2026, the Booker Prize Foundation will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the prize in its current form – the first winner in 2016 was The Vegetarian by Han Kang, translated from Korean by Deborah Smith. Han went on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024.
A longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 24 February 2026, with a shortlist of six books to follow on Tuesday, 31 March 2026. The winning book will be announced at a ceremony in May 2026, which will be livestreamed on the Booker Prizes social media channels.
The International Booker Prize trophy, photographed at the 2025 ceremony at Tate Modern, London
© David Parry for the Booker Prize FoundationNatasha Brown, Chair of the International Booker Prize 2026 judges, says:
‘Fiction in translation allows us to reach past borders and language barriers to encounter new stories, experiences and ideas. Over the years, the International Booker Prize’s shortlists, longlists and winners have amounted to an impressively varied (and consistently impressive) collection of literature. As a reader, this prize has broadened my literary horizons and introduced me to some of my all-time favourite books — so it’s an enormous honour and privilege to chair this year’s judging panel.
‘During our first meeting, one of my fellow judges described the coming months of reading together as a quest. I think that’s a perfect description. We’re about to embark on an epic journey across the world’s fiction, travelling paths forged by the magic of translation. I can’t wait to share the treasures we discover with readers.’
Natasha Brown, Chair of the International Booker Prize 2026 judges
Fiammetta Rocco, Administrator of the International Booker Prize, adds:
‘As we head into the 10th anniversary year for the International Booker Prize in its current form, we have an exceptionally well-read, well-travelled, thoughtful and attentive panel of judges, who bring a thrilling range of expertise on literature and creativity to the task of selecting the best translated fiction of the year.
‘In Natasha Brown, who has been fêted as a literary star of our times, the panel has a Chair who brings experience from both sides of the literary prize process – as a previous judge and as an award-recipient. And with a decade in the financial industry under her belt she will bring a mathematician’s order as she leads a highly-esteemed panel of judges with an internationalist outlook, including a professor who has written about how maths shapes creativity, an editor, writer and bookseller specialising in Pan-African literature, an award-winning novelist and Financial Times columnist from India, and the most nominated translator in International Booker Prize history, who works from Spanish and Italian. I can’t wait to see the selection of books that results from their creative chemistry and collective taste.’
Fiammetta Rocco
The 2026 judges
About the judges
Natasha Brown (Chair)
Natasha Brown is an English novelist. Her debut novel Assembly (2021) won a Betty Trask award in 2022. Assembly was also shortlisted for the Goldsmiths Prize, the Folio Prize and the Orwell Prize for political fiction, and has been translated into 17 languages. Universality (2025), her second novel, is also an Orwell Prize finalist.
Before writing her novels, she read mathematics at Cambridge University and spent over a decade working in the financial services industry. She was named one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in 2023 and one of the Observer’s Best Debut Novelists in 2021. She has been described as ‘one of the most intelligent voices writing today’ by the Guardian and as ‘a powerful new voice in British literature’ by the Sunday Times.
Natasha Brown
© Alice ZooWe’re about to embark on an epic journey across the world’s fiction, travelling paths forged by the magic of translation. I can’t wait to share the treasures we discover
— Natasha Brown, Chair of the International Booker Prize 2026 judges
Marcus du Sautoy
Marcus du Sautoy is the Simonyi Professor for the Public Understanding of Science and Professor of Mathematics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of New College.
In 2016 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He is author of nine books including his most recent, Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity (2025). He has presented numerous radio and TV series including a four-part landmark TV series for the BBC, The Story of Maths, a three-part series, The Code, and programmes with comedians Alan Davies and Dara O’Briain.
He wrote and performed the play I is a Strange Loop, which has been staged at numerous venues, including the Barbican in London. His second play, The Axiom of Choice, toured India in 2024. He works extensively with a range of arts organisations, from The Royal Opera House to the Glastonbury Festival, bringing science alive for the public.
His mathematical research uses classical tools from number theory to explore the mathematics of symmetry. In 2001 he was awarded the Berwick Prize by the London Mathematical Society and in 2009 he was awarded the Royal Society’s Faraday Prize, the UK’s premier award for excellence in communicating science. He received an OBE for services to science in the 2010 New Year’s Honours List.
Marcus du Sautoy
While mathematics is a universal language, reading the novels of the countries I visit for my work is an invaluable way to connect with specific cultures around the world
— Marcus du Sautoy, International Booker Prize 2026 judge
Sophie Hughes
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.
She 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.
Sophie Hughes
© Harry ZundelBooks in translation have the good fortune of being written (tended, loved) twice, which can make their ideas shine even brighter
— Sophie Hughes, International Booker Prize 2026 judge
Troy Onyango
Troy Onyango is a London-based writer and editor from Kisumu, Kenya, and the founder of Lolwe, a Pan-African literary and arts magazine.
He is also the owner of Lolwe Books, an indie Pan-African bookshop in both Kenya and the UK. His debut collection of short stories, For What Are Butterflies Without Their Wings, was published in 2022.
His work has appeared in Prairie Schooner, Doek!, Wasafiri, Nairobi Noir and Transition, among other publications. He was a finalist for the Caine Prize for African Writing and a nominee for the Pushcart Prize, and the winner of the inaugural Nyanza Annual Literary Festival Prize. He holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nairobi, an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia (where he was a Miles Morland Scholar) and an MA in African Studies from SOAS University of London.
Troy Onyango
© Danny BaileyAs someone who grew up speaking what is called “mother tongue” before arriving into English, reading has always been an act of translation for me
— Troy Onyango, International Booker Prize 2026 judge
Nilanjana S. Roy
Nilanjana S. Roy is a novelist and newspaper columnist, and the author of two award-winning fantasy novels, The Wildings (2012) and The Hundred Names of Darkness (2013).
Her third novel and first for adult readers, Black River (2022), is Delhi noir fiction. It was shortlisted for the CWA Gold Dagger award and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.
Roy has also written an essay collection, The Girl Who Ate Books, about her lifelong love of reading, and is the editor of three major anthologies: Our Freedoms (2021), Patriots, Poets & Prisoners: Selections from Ramananda Chatterjee’s The Modern Review (2016), and A Matter of Taste: The Penguin Book of Indian Writing on Food (2004).
Over two decades as a columnist and literary critic, Roy has written for publications including the Business Standard, the New York Times, the Guardian, and the BBC. She currently writes a column about books and the reading life for the Financial Times. She lives in Delhi, India.
Nilanjana S. Roy
© Gauri Gill 2021To translate is to undertake a powerful act of generosity, creativity and connection, to ferry literature across from one language to another, to forge kinship across distance
— Nilanjana S. Roy, International Booker Prize 2026 judge
