The Booker Prizes
Last updated: May 21, 2025
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1
The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree
by Shokoofeh Azar, translated by Anonymous -
2
The Adventures of China Iron
by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre -
3
Tyll
by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin -
4
Hurricane Season
by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes -
5
The Memory Police
by Yōko Ogawa, translated by Stephen Snyder -
6
The Discomfort of Evening
by Marieke Lucas Rijneveld, translated by Michele Hutchison
The Best Fiction in Translation: The 2020 International Booker Prize, recommended by Ted Hodgkinson
The Best Fiction in Translation: The 2020 International Booker Prize, recommended by Ted Hodgkinson
Broaden your reading horizons. Much of the most exciting, playful and inventive new fiction can be read in translation, says Ted Hodgkinson, chair of the judging panel for the 2020 International Booker Prize. Here he talks us through their shortlist of six novels.
The Best Fiction of 2019, recommended by Peter Florence
Each year, a panel of esteemed judges reads over 100 novels to determine which titles will vie for the award of the Booker Prize for Fiction. Peter Florence, chair of the 2019 judges and founder of the famous Hay Festival, tells us why the books on this year’s shortlist are gripping, enthralling must-reads.
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1
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones -
2
Celestial Bodies
by Jokha Alharthi, translated by Marilyn Booth -
3
The Years
by Annie Ernaux & translator - Alison Strayer -
4
The Pine Islands
by Jen Calleja & Marion Poschmann -
5
The Shape of the Ruins
by Juan Gabriel Vásquez, translated by Anne McLean -
6
The Remainder
by Alia Trabucco Zerán & Sophie Hughes (translator)
The Best Novels in Translation: the 2019 Booker International Prize, recommended by Bettany Hughes
The Best Novels in Translation: the 2019 Booker International Prize, recommended by Bettany Hughes
Bettany Hughes, author of Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities and chair of this year’s Booker International Prize judging panel, talks us through the six books they have shortlisted for the title of best novel in translation.
The Best Fiction of 2018, recommended by Kwame Anthony Appiah
Looking for the best novels of the year? Kwame Anthony Appiah, professor of philosophy at New York University and chair of the 2018 Man Booker Prize for fiction, gives an in-depth breakdown of the six books that made this year’s shortlist, and reflects on why the novel as a form is stronger than ever.
Rachel Kushner on Books That Influenced Her
Rachel Kushner, author of The Flamethrowers and The Mars Room, which has been shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, discusses the five books that have most influenced her writing, from Dostoyevsky to Marguerite Duras. She muses on the question of what fiction can offer: “A novel itself, if it is good, and effective at whatever its particular aesthetic and philosophical aim is, can answer the question best, so that a novelist doesn’t have to.”
Esi Edugyan on Books That Influenced Her
Canadian author Esi Edugyan, whose novel Washington Black is shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize, picks five books that have inspired her novels, and shares wisdom on what it means to read fiction today
Robin Robertson on Books that Influenced Him
“That’s what writing is: a struggle with oneself.” Scottish poet Robin Robertson—author of the verse novel The Long Take, shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize—lists the five works that have most influenced his writing, from Ulysses to Heaney.
Daisy Johnson on Books That Influenced Her
Daisy Johnson—short story writer, novelist, and the youngest author to be shortlisted for the 2018 Man Booker Prize—chooses the five books that most inspired her novel Everything Under and shares some of her writing rituals and philosophy.
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1
Gisli Sursson’s Saga
by Various -
2
Growth of the Soil
by Knut Hamsun and Sverre Lyngstad (translator) -
3
Shyness and Dignity
by Dag Solstad and Sverre Lyngstad (translator) -
4
Beatles
by Don Bartlett (translator) & Lars Saabye Christensen -
5
My Struggle
by Don Bartlett (translator) & Karl Ove Knausgård
Essential Norwegian Fiction, recommended by Roy Jacobsen
Essential Norwegian Fiction, recommended by Roy Jacobsen
Sagas old and new, from Gisli Sursson’s trials to Knausgård’s struggle, form the backbone of Roy Jacobsen’s selection of essential fiction from Norway, a country that is like ‘a black and not very polished diamond’, and where writers and readers seek out the human, ‘no matter how awkward, grandiose, sentimental, nostalgic, embarrassing, hyperbolic, stupid, hilarious or dangerous it may be’
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1
Tevye the Dairyman and Motl the Cantor’s Son
by Sholem Aleichem -
2
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories
by Bruno Schultz and Celina Wieniewska (translator) -
3
Dubliners
by James Joyce -
4
Mario and the Magician and Other Stories
by Thomas Mann -
5
History: A Novel
by Elsa Morante and William Weaver (translator)
David Grossman on the Books That Shaped Him
David Grossman on the Books That Shaped Him
David Grossman, renowned Israeli author and winner of the 2017 Man Booker International Prize, shares the books that have shaped his writing, from Sholem Aleichem to James Joyce and Elsa Morante