Witches, Nazi collaborators and banned books: International Booker prize announces 2026 longlist

Olga Ravn, Daniel Kehlmann, Ia Genberg, Mathias Énard and Gabriela Cabezón Cámara are among those longlisted for the 10th International Booker prize, which recognises the best translated fiction published in the past year.A “Booker dozen” of 13 books were longlisted for this year’s prize. One author-translator pair will win £50,000, to be split equally.Ravn, Kehlmann, Genberg, Énard and Cabezón Cámara have all previously been shortlisted for the prize. This year, German author Kehlmann was chosen for The Director, translated by Ross Benjamin, which is inspired by the life of the film-maker GW Pabst, who collaborated with the Third Reich.“The Director has all the darkness, shapeshifting ambiguity and glittering unease of a modern Grimms’ fairytale,” wrote Nina Allan in a Guardian review. “It is Kehlmann’s best work yet.”Danish writer Ravn was selected for her fourth novel, The Wax Child, translated by Martin Aitken, which is about real-life 17th-century Danish witch trials.Witchcraft appears elsewhere on the longlist, in French writer Marie NDiaye’s The Witch, translated by Jordan Stump, published in its original French in 1996. NDiaye was previously longlisted for the prize in 2016, and was shortlisted in the prize’s earlier incarnation in 2013, when it recognised writers for their entire body of work.Another longlisted title published in its original language several decades ago is Women Without Men by Iranian writer Shahrnush Parsipur, translated by Faridoun Farrokh, which was published in Persian in 1989. In the 80s, Parsipur was imprisoned in Iran for five years. Soon after her release, she published Women Without Men and was jailed again. The book, in which five women from different life paths end up living together in a garden on the outskirts of Tehran, has been banned in Iran since 1989.Swedish author Genberg made this year’s longlist for Small Comfort, translated by Kira Josefsson, a set of five interconnected stories. Meanwhile, Énard was longlisted for The Deserters, translated by Charlotte Mandell, which marks the 17th International Booker nomination for Fitzcarraldo, the most-nominated imprint in the prize’s history.Another independent publisher recognised this year is Peirene Press with She Who Remains by Bulgarian writer Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora 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, alongside German author Shida Bazyar with The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran, translated by Ruth Martin, and The Duke by Italian author Matteo Melchiorre, translated by Antonella Lettieri.Argentinian writer Cabezón Cámara was nominated for We Are Green and Trembling, translated by Robin Myers, which won the US National Book Award for translated literature last year.Completing this year’s longlist is The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated by David McKay; On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan; and Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated by Lin King.“Many of the submitted books examined the devastating consequences of war, which is reflected in our longlist,” said judging chair and novelist Natasha Brown. “The list also features petty squabbles between neighbours, mysterious mountain villages, big pharma conspiracies, witchy women, ill-fated lovers, a haunted prison, and obscure film references. The page counts range from ‘pocket-friendly’ to ‘doorstopper’. And while the books’ original publication dates span four decades, each story feels fresh and innovative.”This year’s shortlist of six books will be announced on 31 March, with each shortlisted title receiving £5,000, to be split equally between author and translator. The winner will be announced on 19 May at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London.Joining Brown on this year’s judging panel are mathematician Marcus du Sautoy, translator Sophie Hughes, and the 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. Booker prize foundation chief executive Gaby Wood said that this year’s submissions of books were originally written in a record total of 34 languages – “a sign, perhaps, that translated works from an ever-broader range of original languages are increasingly available to anglophone readers”.Last year, Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi, became the first collection of short stories to take home the award. Other previous winners include Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk and Georgi Gospodinov.Wood noted that four authors recognised by the prize for a single book have gone on to win the Nobel for their body of work: Han, Tokarczuk, Jon Fosse – who was longlisted for the International Booker in 2020 and shortlisted in 2022 – and László Krasznahorkai, who was shortlisted in 2018.