International Booker Prize

Based on Wikipedia: International Booker Prize

The Award That Changed How We Read the World

In May 2025, a collection of short stories written in Kannada—a language spoken by roughly fifty million people in southwestern India—won one of the world's most prestigious literary prizes. Banu Mushtaq's Heart Lamp: Selected Stories became the first work translated from Kannada ever to win the International Booker Prize, and her translator Deepa Bhasthi became the first Indian translator to claim the award.

This was not an aberration. It was exactly what the International Booker Prize was designed to do.

The prize exists to find literature that most English-speaking readers would never encounter on their own—stories from languages and cultures that rarely make it onto bookstore shelves in London or New York. And then it does something revolutionary: it treats the translator as an equal partner with the author, splitting the prize money down the middle.

Two Prizes, Two Philosophies

To understand the International Booker Prize, you first need to understand its older sibling, the Booker Prize itself. The original Booker has been awarded since 1969 to the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom. For decades, only writers from the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, and Zimbabwe were eligible—a geographical restriction that reflected Britain's postcolonial literary relationships.

The International Booker Prize began in 2005 as something quite different. Where the Booker celebrated English-language novels, the International Prize initially celebrated entire careers. Every two years, a living author from any country whose work was available in English—including translations—would receive sixty thousand pounds in recognition of their "continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage."

Think of it as the literary world's equivalent of a lifetime achievement Oscar, but given while the recipient still had plenty of work left to do.

The first winner set the tone perfectly. Ismail Kadare, an Albanian novelist whose work explored totalitarianism, mythology, and the human cost of political oppression, received the inaugural prize in 2005. The head judge, Professor John Carey, described Kadare as "a universal writer in the tradition of storytelling that goes back to Homer." This was literature that transcended borders, that spoke to fundamental human experiences, that deserved wider recognition in the English-speaking world.

The Honor Roll of Early Winners

The subsequent biennial awards read like a syllabus for understanding twentieth-century world literature.

In 2007, Nigerian author Chinua Achebe received the prize. His 1958 novel Things Fall Apart had essentially invented modern African literature, offering a complex, dignified portrayal of Igbo society encountering colonialism at a time when Western readers had few authentic African voices on their shelves. Judge Nadine Gordimer—herself a Nobel laureate—called Achebe "the father of modern African literature."

Two years later, Canadian short story writer Alice Munro claimed the award. Judge Jane Smiley admitted that picking a winner had been "a challenge," but Munro's precise, psychologically acute stories about ordinary lives in rural Ontario had won the panel over. "Her work is practically perfect," Smiley said. "Any writer has to gawk when reading her because her work is very subtle and precise."

Munro would later win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013, joining Achebe in a select group of writers whose genius was recognized by both institutions.

The 2011 prize went to Philip Roth, the American novelist whose darkly comic explorations of Jewish-American identity, sexuality, and mortality had made him one of the most celebrated and controversial writers of his generation. The decision proved so contentious that one judge, Carmen Callil, withdrew from the panel in protest. "I don't rate him as a writer at all," she told journalists. "In twenty years' time will anyone read him?" Callil later wrote a full editorial in The Guardian explaining her position—a reminder that literary judgments, even among experts, remain intensely personal.

The Reinvention

In 2016, everything changed.

The previous year, organizers had announced that the International Booker Prize would absorb another award, the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, and adopt its format entirely. Instead of honoring a writer's entire career every two years, the International Booker would now annually celebrate a single book of fiction translated into English.

More importantly, the fifty thousand pound prize would be split equally between author and translator.

This was a radical statement about the nature of translation itself. For too long, translators had been treated as invisible conduits, their names relegated to copyright pages, their creative contributions ignored. The International Booker Prize declared that a translator is not merely transcribing words from one language to another—they are making hundreds of artistic decisions about tone, rhythm, cultural context, and meaning. They are, in a very real sense, co-creating the book that English-language readers experience.

The first winner under this new format was Han Kang, a South Korean author, for her novel The Vegetarian, translated by Deborah Smith. Han became the first Korean author to win the prize, and Smith became the first translator to share it equally. The judging panel's decision was unanimous.

Breaking Barriers, One Book at a Time

Since the 2016 transformation, the International Booker Prize has methodically expanded the map of world literature accessible to English readers.

In 2017, Israeli author David Grossman won for A Horse Walks into a Bar, a novel structured as a stand-up comedy performance that gradually reveals the trauma beneath the jokes. Grossman became the first Israeli writer to claim the prize.

The following year brought Polish author Olga Tokarczuk and her novel Flights, a fragmented, philosophical meditation on travel, anatomy, and the human desire for movement. Tokarczuk would go on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, announced in 2019 but awarded for 2018—the second International Booker winner to achieve this double recognition.

2019 saw another breakthrough: Jokha Alharthi became the first author writing in Arabic to win the International Booker Prize. Her novel Celestial Bodies, translated by Marilyn Booth, explored three generations of an Omani family against a backdrop of slavery, modernization, and shifting gender roles. Judge Bettany Hughes praised the book for giving English readers "access to ideas and thoughts and experiences you aren't normally given."

This is the prize's essential mission: to open doors.

Recent Milestones

The 2022 winner, Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell, represented two firsts simultaneously. It was the first Hindi-language novel ever nominated for the prize, and the first novel in any Indian language to win it. The book tells the story of an eighty-year-old woman who defies her family's expectations by traveling to Pakistan to confront her past—a journey across the partition border that divided British India in 1947 and still shapes South Asian identity today.

In 2023, Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov won for Time Shelter, translated by Angela Rodel, marking the first victory for Bulgarian literature. The novel imagines a clinic that recreates past decades for dementia patients, then watches as nostalgia becomes a political force that consumes entire nations.

The 2024 prize went to German author Jenny Erpenbeck for Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann. Erpenbeck became the first German writer to win the International Booker, and Hofmann became the first male translator to share the prize—a small statistical note that underscored how many women had been doing this essential literary work.

The Mechanics of Selection

Each year, the International Booker Prize follows a carefully structured selection process designed to build anticipation and attention for translated literature.

In late February or early March, the judges announce a longlist of twelve or thirteen books—sometimes called "the Booker Dozen." These are works that survived the initial culling from among all eligible translations published in the United Kingdom or Ireland during the previous year. Making the longlist alone brings significant attention to books that might otherwise struggle for visibility.

About a month later, the shortlist emerges: six finalists whose authors and translators each receive twenty-five hundred pounds, regardless of the final outcome. The shortlist announcement typically generates substantial media coverage, as critics debate the judges' choices and readers race to finish the contenders before the winner is revealed.

The winner is announced in May, usually at a ceremony in London. Recent venues have included the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Tate Modern. The fifty thousand pound prize is split equally, with twenty-five thousand going to the author and twenty-five thousand to the translator.

The Judges and Their Perspectives

Each year brings a new judging panel, typically chaired by a prominent literary figure and including writers, critics, translators, and cultural voices from across the globe. The diversity of the panels reflects the prize's international ambitions.

The 2024 panel, for instance, was chaired by Canadian writer and broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel and included Mojave American poet Natalie Diaz, Sri Lankan British novelist Romesh Gunesekera, South African artist William Kentridge, and American writer and translator Aaron Robertson. This mix of backgrounds—Indigenous American poetry, South Asian fiction, visual art, translation practice—brought radically different reading experiences to the judging table.

The 2025 panel demonstrated similar range: English writer Max Porter chaired, joined by Nigerian poet and photographer Caleb Femi, publishing director Sana Goyal, South Korean writer and translator Anton Hur, and English singer-songwriter Beth Orton. When a prize gathers a poet, a musician, a publisher, and a translator to judge fiction, the conversations must be fascinating.

Why Translators Matter

The International Booker Prize's decision to split the award equally between author and translator was not merely symbolic. It addressed a structural problem in literary publishing.

Translated fiction accounts for only about three percent of books published in the United Kingdom and United States—a statistic that has barely budged in decades despite growing awareness of the issue. Publishers often cite commercial risk: readers, they argue, prefer familiar cultural contexts, and translated books require additional investment in the form of translation fees.

By elevating translators to equal status with authors, the International Booker Prize does several things simultaneously. It increases the financial rewards for translators, making the profession more sustainable. It raises the public profile of translation as a creative art form. And it signals to publishers that translated literature can achieve the highest recognition, potentially reducing the perceived commercial risk.

Some translators have become recurring figures in the prize's history. Sophie Hughes, who translates from Spanish, appeared on the 2025 longlist for a record fifth time and on the shortlist for a record third time. Her consistent presence demonstrates both her skill and the ongoing productivity of Spanish-language literature worth bringing to English readers.

Controversy and the Nature of Literary Judgment

No literary prize escapes controversy, and the International Booker has had its share of dramatic moments.

The most memorable occurred during the 2011 biennial prize, when Carmen Callil resigned from the judging panel after Philip Roth was announced as the winner. Her public criticism—questioning whether anyone would read Roth in twenty years—sparked fierce debate about literary evaluation, gender bias in the canon, and whether judges should air their disagreements publicly.

An earlier incident occurred during the same selection process: novelist John le Carré asked to be removed from consideration, saying he was "flattered" but did not compete for literary prizes. Judge Rick Gekoski, however, said le Carré's name would remain on the list anyway—a curious standoff about what it means to be "nominated" for recognition you never sought.

These controversies, paradoxically, serve the prize well. They generate attention, spark conversations about what literature matters and why, and remind readers that judging art is not a mechanical process with objectively correct answers.

The Crankstart Era

Behind every literary prize lies a financial sponsor, and the International Booker's history reflects the shifting landscape of corporate and philanthropic support for the arts.

For its first decade, the prize was sponsored by the Man Group, a British hedge fund company, which is why older references call it the "Man Booker International Prize." This corporate sponsorship was not unusual—the main Booker Prize had similar arrangements—but it always raised questions about the relationship between finance capital and literary culture.

In 2019, the Crankstart charitable foundation took over support for both Booker Prizes. Crankstart was founded by Sir Michael Moritz, a Welsh-American venture capitalist known for early investments in Google, Yahoo, and PayPal, and his wife Harriet Heyman. Their statement upon assuming sponsorship struck a notably personal tone: "Neither of us can imagine a day where we don't spend time reading a book. The Booker Prizes are ways of spreading the word about the insights, discoveries, pleasures and joy that spring from great fiction."

Under Crankstart, the prizes dropped the "Man" prefix, becoming simply the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize.

A Brief History of Its Predecessor

The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, which the International Booker absorbed in 2016, deserves a moment of recognition.

From 1990 to 2015, this smaller prize honored translated fiction with less fanfare but similar intent. When it was disbanded, its prize money and mission were folded into the restructured International Booker, creating a single, more prominent award for translated literature.

The decision to merge rather than simply end the Independent Prize preserved its legacy while amplifying its goals. The International Booker Prize's current format—annual, focused on individual books, split between author and translator—is essentially the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize model operating under a more famous name with more money and more attention.

What the Prize Reveals About World Literature

Looking at the full list of International Booker winners and nominees reveals patterns in global literary production and translation.

European languages remain well-represented: German, Polish, Hungarian, Bulgarian, French, Spanish, and Dutch have all produced winners or prominent nominees. But the prize has increasingly recognized literature from languages with far fewer translators working into English: Arabic, Korean, Hindi, and now Kannada.

Each of these linguistic breakthroughs represents not just one book but an opening. When Han Kang won for The Vegetarian in 2016, it sparked increased interest in Korean literature more broadly. Publishers became more willing to acquire Korean novels, translators found more work, and readers discovered an entire tradition they had barely known existed.

The same pattern holds for Jokha Alharthi's Arabic-language win, for Geetanjali Shree's Hindi triumph, and presumably for Banu Mushtaq's Kannada victory. Each prize winner becomes an ambassador for their literary tradition.

The Prize in Context

The International Booker Prize exists within a constellation of awards that shape global literary reputation.

The Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded by the Swedish Academy, remains the most prestigious recognition for a writer's overall career, but it has faced criticism for Eurocentrism and for occasionally selecting obscure or politically convenient winners. The International Booker, by focusing on individual books and requiring English translation, offers a more accessible entry point for readers who want to explore prizewinning literature.

The National Book Award in the United States includes a translated literature category, as does France's Prix Goncourt (in a separate international track). The International Dublin Literary Award, with its unique nomination system through public libraries worldwide, takes yet another approach to identifying significant global fiction.

What distinguishes the International Booker is its combination of factors: the prestige of the Booker brand, the focus on a single translated work rather than a career, the equal recognition of translators, and the United Kingdom's role as a gateway for literature entering the broader English-speaking world.

Reading in Translation

The International Booker Prize makes an implicit argument every year: that reading in translation is not a compromise but an opportunity.

When you read a translated novel, you encounter two creative minds working in concert. The author provides the story, the characters, the original language's rhythms and cultural references. The translator provides the bridge, making countless decisions about how to render meaning, mood, and music into a different linguistic system.

Sometimes translation loses something—a pun that only works in the original language, a cultural reference that has no equivalent, a sound pattern that cannot survive the crossing. But sometimes translation adds something: a fresh perspective on the source text, a creative solution that illuminates meaning the original author only implied, a window into how one language sees another.

The best translations are not transparent. They have their own style, their own signature. Michael Hofmann's translations from German read differently than Daisy Rockwell's translations from Hindi, not just because of the source languages but because of the translators' artistic choices.

By splitting the prize equally, the International Booker Prize asks readers to pay attention to this artistry. When you pick up a shortlisted book, notice the translator's name. Consider what choices they might have made. Recognize that you are reading a collaboration.

The Future of Literary Recognition

The International Booker Prize has evolved significantly in its two decades of existence, and it will likely continue evolving.

The shift from biennial career awards to annual book prizes reflected changing ideas about how literature should be celebrated. The absorption of the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize concentrated resources and attention. The equal split with translators signaled new values about creative labor.

What might come next? Perhaps greater recognition for translators who work from underrepresented languages, where the pool of qualified practitioners is small and the work is proportionally harder. Perhaps expanded eligibility to include books published outside the UK and Ireland. Perhaps new categories that recognize different forms of translated writing.

Whatever changes come, the core mission seems secure: to find remarkable books from around the world, to bring them to English-language readers, and to honor everyone who makes that crossing possible.

A Reading List for the Curious

If the International Booker Prize has succeeded in its mission, you might be wondering where to start exploring.

The career-phase winners offer a natural entry point for their respective traditions. Ismail Kadare's The Palace of Dreams or Broken April would introduce you to his allegorical explorations of totalitarianism. Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart remains essential for understanding African literature's development. Alice Munro's story collections—Runaway, The Love of a Good Woman, Dear Life—demonstrate why many critics consider her the short story's greatest living practitioner.

Among the single-book winners, your interests might guide your choices. Han Kang's The Vegetarian explores bodily autonomy and family pressure through a woman who simply stops eating meat. Olga Tokarczuk's Flights rewards readers who enjoy fragmented, essayistic fiction that moves associatively rather than linearly. Georgi Gospodinov's Time Shelter offers speculative fiction about nostalgia as a political weapon.

And don't neglect the shortlists. Books that came close to winning often prove just as rewarding as the eventual victors. The Booker Dozen longlists cast an even wider net, identifying translated literature that might otherwise never cross your radar.

The International Booker Prize cannot solve the three-percent problem on its own. Publishers, readers, reviewers, booksellers, and librarians all play roles in determining which books find audiences. But by celebrating translated literature at the highest levels, by treating translators as creative partners, and by consistently introducing English readers to writers they would never have discovered otherwise, the prize has become one of the most reliable guides to world literature available.

Somewhere right now, a writer is crafting sentences in a language most English speakers cannot read. Somewhere, a translator is wrestling with how to bring those sentences across. And in a few years, if the work is good enough and the circumstances align, the International Booker Prize might introduce them both to a new audience.

That's how literature spreads. One book at a time, one translation at a time, one reader at a time.