• Booker Prize-Winning Novels - Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
  • Booker Prize-Winning Novels - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
  • Booker Prize-Winning Novels - The Promise by Damon Galgut
  • Booker Prize-Winning Novels - Shuggie Bain: A Novel by Douglas Stuart
  • Booker Prize-Winning Novels - Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
  • Booker Prize-Winning Novels - The Testaments: A Novel by Margaret Atwood

Booker Prize-Winning Novels

We’re looking forward to the announcement of this year’s Booker Prize winner in November. But until then, perhaps you’d like to work your way through the backlist of Booker Prize-winning novels from the last twenty years?

  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Not a River: A Novel by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott
  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Crooked Plow: A Novel by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated by Johnny Lorenz
  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong, translated by Sora Kim-Russell & Youngjae Josephine Bae
  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, translated by Sarah Timmer Harvey
  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Michael Hofmann
  • The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Details: A Novel by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson

The Best Novels in Translation: The 2024 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Eleanor Wachtel

Every year, the judges for the International Booker Prize read dozens of novels newly translated into English before compiling their shortlist of the very best. We spoke to the Canadian broadcaster Eleanor Wachtel—who chaired this year’s jury—about the six books they’ve selected in 2024: from a slim, elliptical Swedish novel about contemporary relationships to a multi-generational epic set in 20th-century Korea. See all our best novels of 2024 recommendations

  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Prophet Song by Paul Lynch
  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - If I Survive You by Jonathan Escoffery
  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Western Lane by Chetna Maroo
  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - This Other Eden by Paul Harding
  • The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

The Best Novels of 2023: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Cal Flyn

Every year, the judges for the Booker Prize read more than a hundred books that have been submitted by their publishers in the hope of being recognised by one of the world’s most prestigious literary awards. The 2023 shortlist features a novel-in-stories, an Irish dystopia, and plenty of family drama. Read more fiction recommendations on Five Books

  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Glory: A Novel by NoViolet Bulawayo
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Trees by Percival Everett
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Treacle Walker by Alan Garner
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
  • The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout

The Best Fiction of 2022: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Neil MacGregor

The Booker Prize is awarded each year to the best original novel written in the English language. We asked the art historian Neil MacGregor, chair of this year’s judging panel, to talk us through the six novels that made the 2022 shortlist—and why fiction can be a most effective means of engaging us emotionally in social and political crisis elsewhere.

  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated by Sam Bett and David Boyd
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Books of Jacob: A Novel by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist - Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

The Best of World Literature: The 2022 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Frank Wynne

The International Booker Prize celebrates the best fiction in translation published over the previous year. Frank Wynne, acclaimed translator and chair of the 2022 judging panel, tells Five Books about the six novels that made the shortlist, and reminds readers that world literature need not be tough, consumed only in the interests of self-improvement—but is often joyful, surprising and full of feeling.

  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - No One is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood
  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Promise by Damon Galgut
  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Bewilderment: A Novel by Richard Powers
  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - A Passage North by Anuk Arudpragasam
  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - The Fortune Men: A Novel by Nadifa Mohamed
  • The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist - Great Circle: A Novel by Maggie Shipstead

The Best Fiction of 2021: The Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Maya Jasanoff

This year the Booker Prize finalists include new work from previous shortlistees Richard Powers and Damon Galgut, a sweeping historical novel by Maggie Shipstead, and a fragmentary account of a life lived ‘extremely online.’ Maya Jasanoff, Harvard historian and chair of the 2021 judging panel, talks us through the best fiction of the past year.

  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - At Night All Blood Is Black by David Diop, translated by Anna Moschovakis
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Dangers of Smoking in Bed: Stories by Mariana Enríquez, translated by Megan McDowell
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The Employees: A workplace novel of the 22nd century by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - In Memory of Memory by Maria Stepanova, by Sasha Dugdale
  • The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist - The War of the Poor by Éric Vuillard, translated by Mark Polizzotti

The Best of World Literature: The 2021 International Booker Prize Shortlist, recommended by Lucy Hughes-Hallett

Every year the International Booker Prize judges read dozens of novels from around the world, which are newly translated into English. Here Lucy Hughes-Hallett—award-winning author and chair of this year’s judging panel—talks us through the six books that made their 2021 shortlist of the best world literature.