Witches, Nazi collaborators and banned books: the International Booker Prize announces its 2026 longlist | International Booker Prize

Olga Ravn, Daniel Kellmann, Ia Genberg, Matthias Eynard, and Gabriela Cabezon Cámara are among the longlisted nominees for the International Booker Prize, which honors the best translated novels and is in its tenth year this year.

The Booker Dozen of 13 books have been longlisted for this year’s prize. The author and translator will each receive a prize of £50,000, which will be split equally.

Raven, Kelman, Ginberg, Enard and Cabezon Camara were previously shortlisted for the award. German writer Kellmann was selected this year for The Director, translated by Ross Benjamin and inspired by the life of director J. W. Pabst, who collaborated with the Third Reich.

“The director has all the darkness, shifting mystery and brilliant anxiety of a modern Grimms’ fairy tale,” Nina Allan wrote in a review for The Guardian. “It’s Kelman’s best work to date.”

Danish author Raven has been selected for her fourth novel, The Wax Child, translated by Martin Aitken, which is about the real-life Danish witch trials of the 17th century.

Witchcraft appears elsewhere on the longlist, in French writer Marie Ndiaye’s novel The Enchantress, translated by Jordan Stamp, which was published in its original French version in 1996. Ndiaye was previously longlisted for the prize in 2016, and was shortlisted in the previous edition of the prize in 2013, when it honored writers for their entire work.

Another longlisted book published in its original language several decades ago is Women Without Men by Iranian writer Sharnoush Parsipour, translated by Fereydoun Farroukh, which was published in Persian in 1989. In the 1980s, Parsipour was imprisoned in Iran for five years. Shortly after her release, she published the book Women Without Men and was imprisoned again. The book, about five women from different walks of life who end up living together in a park on the outskirts of Tehran, has been banned in Iran since 1989.

Swedish author Ginberg has been longlisted this year for her book Small Comfort translated by Kira Josephsson, a collection of five interconnected stories. Meanwhile, Enard has been longlisted for The Deserters, translated by Charlotte Mandel, which marks Fitzcarraldo’s 17th International Booker nomination, the most nominated imprint in the prize’s history.

Another independent publisher honored this year is Peirene Press with She Who Remains by Bulgarian writer Rene Karabaş, translated by Isidora Angel, about a woman who avoids an arranged marriage by becoming a sworn virgin.

Karabash is one of three debut writers on this year’s longlist, along with German writer Shida Baziar with Quiet Nights in Tehran (translated by Ruth Martin), and The Duke by Italian writer Matteo Melchiorri (translated by Antonella Lettieri).

Argentine writer Cabezon Cámara has been nominated for his novel We Are Green and Trembling, translated by Robin Myers, which won the US National Book Award for Translated Literature last year.

This year’s long list is completed by Anjit Danji’s “The Remembered Soldier”, translated by David McKay; “On the Earth as Below” by Anna Paula Maya, translated by Padma Viswanathan; The Taiwan Journey by Yang Shuangzhou, translated by Lin Qing.

Jury chair and novelist Natasha Brown said: “Many of the books submitted dealt with the devastating consequences of war, which is reflected in our longlist.” “The list also includes small squabbles between neighbors, mysterious mountain villages, Big Pharma conspiracies, witchy women, ill-fated lovers, a haunted prison, and obscure movie references. Page counts range from ‘pocket-friendly’ to ‘door-stopper’. And while the books’ original publication dates span four decades, each story feels fresh and original.”

This year’s shortlist of six books will be announced on 31 March, with each shortlisted title receiving £5,000, which will be split equally between the author and translator. The winner will be announced on May 19 at a ceremony held at the Tate Modern Museum in London.

Joining Brown on this year’s judging panel are mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, translator Sophie Hughes, and writers Troy Onyango and Nilanjana S. Roy.

The longlist was selected from 128 titles published in the UK or Ireland between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026. Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said the books submitted this year were originally written in a record total of 34 languages ​​– “perhaps a sign that works translated from a wide range of original languages ​​are increasingly available to English-speaking readers.”

Last year, Banu Mushtaq’s collection “Lamp of the Heart”, translated by Deepa Bhasti, became the first short story collection to win the award. Other past winners include Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk and Georgi Gospodinov.

Wood noted that four authors recognized for the award for a single book have won a Nobel Prize for a body of work: Hahn, Tokarczuk, John Foss — who was longlisted for the International Booker Prize in 2020 and shortlisted in 2022 — and Laszlo Krasznahorkai, who was shortlisted in 2018.