The International Booker Prize
The International Booker Prize is the world's most influential award for translated fiction
The prize, which is awarded annually, celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. It recognises the vital work of translators, with the £50,000 prize money divided equally between authors and translators. In addition, shortlisted authors and translators each receive £2,500.
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi, is the winner of the 2025 prize. The winning book, the first collection of short stories to be awarded the prize, and the first winner originally written in Kannada, was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter, Chair of the judges, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern on Tuesday, 20 May 2025.
Winners of the International Booker Prize
The history of the International Booker Prize
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 László 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.
Albanian novelist Ismail Kadare.
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