The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for the finest single work of fiction from around the world which has been translated into English and published in the UK and Ireland.
The prize celebrates the vital work of translators, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between the author and the translator. In addition, the shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500.
The winner of the International Booker Prize 2023 is Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel. It was announced at a ceremony at Sky Garden in London on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. Read more about the book here.
This is not just about me, the individual. I represent a language and culture and this recognition brings into larger purview the entire world of Hindi literature in particular and Indian literature as a whole.
By Jon Fosse
Translated by Damion Searls
Translated by Daisy Rockwell
By Bora Chung
Translated by Anton Hur
Translated by Frances Riddle
Translated by Sam Bett David Boyd
Translated by Jennifer Croft
The Booker Prizes exist to reward the finest in fiction. The symmetrical relationship between the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize ensures that the Booker honours fiction on a global basis: world-class fiction is highlighted by the prizes for English-speaking readers, whether that work was originally written in English (the Booker Prize) or translated into English (the International Booker Prize).
The International Booker Prize began life in 2005 as the Man Booker International Prize. It was initially a biennial prize for a body of work, and there was no stipulation that the work should be written in a language other than English. Early winners of the Man Booker International Prize therefore include Alice Munro, Lydia Davis and Philip Roth, as well as Ismail Kadare and Laszlo Krasznahorkai.
In 2015, after the rules of the original Booker Prize expanded to allow writers of any nationality to enter - as long as their books were written in English and published in the UK - the International Prize evolved to become the mirror image of the English-language prize. Since then it has been awarded annually for a single book, written in another language and translated into English.
The Man Group continued to sponsor both prizes until 2019, when Crankstart became the funder, and the prize names reverted to the familiar ‘Booker’ name alone.
This prize aims to encourage more reading of quality fiction from all over the world, and has already had an impact on those statistics in the UK. Novels and collections of short stories are both eligible.
Winner of the inaugural Man Booker International literary prize, Albanian writer Ismail Kadare, stands in the Playfair Library before accepting his award in Edinburgh, June 27, 2005.
© Reuters/Alamy
