The RAS Korean Literature Club discussion
Korean contenders for the 2026 International Booker Prize: list, discussion, speculation
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Mod
NOTE: This thread is meant to be a "Korean novel-in-translation only" supplement to the discussion going on elsewhere at GoodReads:
"2026 International Booker Prize speculation: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...
(Thread started in April 2025, by Paul Fulchur; there are 24 replies as of this writing, no mention, however, of Korean authors/novels.)
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The RAS Korean Literature Club's more-or-less active members today number in the low dozens. (Most not on GoodReads; it is an in-person group). Adding passive members, past members no longer active, and those in occasional contact via any method, the number is well into the three-digit range.
The reason I say this here is: the perspectives on this question of Korean novels in the International Booker Prize 2026 may be different from those you'd see elsewhere.
We'll see what people have to say, between now and May 2026 when the final-winner is announced.
All replies and opinions welcome! (The greater portion of chatter in this Korean Literature Club occurs outside GoodReads; but if anything on the International Booker Prize 2026 comes up, I'll try to relay it and re-post it, here, when I can.)
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Mod
There are currently known to be eighty-some books eligible for the 2026 International Booker Prize.
Amazingly, 15 of them are Korean. That means around one-in-six of the 2026 International Booker Prize-eligible books are Korean.
If this ratio holds, random-chance probability gives us a 92%+ chance that at least one of the longlisted books for 2026 will be a translation from Korean. (That's given that there are to be thirteen longlisted books when the list is announced in late-February 2026. ---> 1-[15/84] = 0.8215; [0.8215^13] = 7.75% is the probability of zero Korean titles in the 13-book longlist.)
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GoodReads members are crowd-sourcing a rolling list of books eligible books for consideration for the prize:
https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2...
I'll post. right after this, the 15 Korean titles that are known so far.
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Mod
KOREAN NOVELS-IN-TRANSLATION ELIGIBLE FOR THE 2026 INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE
(a running list; eligibility: must be translated from Korean and published by a UK publisher between May 2025 thru April 2026)
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Summary list:
(1.) The Hole by Hye-young Pyun (tr. Sora Kim-Russell);
(2.) Red Sword by Bora Chung (tr. Anton Hur);
(3.) Hunger by Choi Jin-young (tr. Soje);
(4.) Failed Summer Vacation by Heuijung Hur (tr. Paige Aniyah Morris);
(5.) Blowfish by Kyung-ran Jo (tr. Chi Young Kim);
(6.) Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee-hye (tr. Shanna Tan);
(7.) Chinatown by Oh Jung Hee (tr. Bruce Fulton);
(8.) Capitalists Must Starve by Park Seo-ryeon (tr. Anton Hur);
(9.) Broccoli Punch by Lee Yuri (tr. Amber HJ Kim);
(10.) The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-ran (tr. Gene Png);
(11.) The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-yeon (tr. Janet Hong);
(12.) If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop (tr. Anton Hur);
(13.) A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang by Lee Onhwa (tr. Slin Jung);
(14.) To the Moon by Jang Ryujin (tr. Sean Lin Halbert);
(15.) Roadkill by Amil (tr. Archana Madhavan).
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(1.) THE HOLE
- genre: Mystery, Thriller, Horror
- author: Hye-young Pyun;
- translator: Sora Kim-Russell;
- publisher: Doubleday [Penguin UK];
- publication date: late-July 2025.
- original publication in English: August 2017 in the US by Arcade Publishing (an imprint of minor-publisher Skyhorse).
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? YES! -- in October 2018. (See: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...).
- original book info: title: <홀>; author: 편혜영; publisher: 문학과지성사; original publication in Korean: March 2016.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(2.) RED SWORD
- genre: science fiction;
- author: Bora Chung;
- translator: Anton Hur;
- publisher: Honford Star [UK];
- publication date: May 2025;
- original publication in English: (same)
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? YES! -- for June 2025 session (see: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...).
- original book info: title: <붉은 칼>; author: 정보라; publisher: 아작; original publication in Korean: January 2019.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(3.) HUNGER
- genre: Horror
- author: Choi Jin-young
- translator: Soje [?]
- publisher: Brazen [UK]
- publication date: June 2025
- original publication in English: (same)
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <구의 증명>; author: 최진영; publisher: 은행나무; original publication in Korean: March 2015.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(4.) FAILED SUMMER VACATION
- genre: Science fiction, fantasy, speculative fiction;
- author: Heuijung Hur;
- translator: Paige Aniyah Morris;
- publisher: Scratch Books [UK];
- publication date: June 2025;
- original publication in English (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <실패한 여름휴가>; author: 허희정; publisher: 문학과지성사; original publication in Korean: June 2020.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(5.) BLOWFISH
- genre: Literary Fiction;
- author: Kyung-ran Jo;
- translator: Chi Young Kim;
- publisher: Astra House;
- publication date: July 2025;
- original publication in English: (same?);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <복어>; author: 조경란; publisher: 문학동네; original publication in Korean: 2010.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(6.) SOYANGRI BOOK KITCHEN
- genre: Healing Fiction;
- author: Kim Jee-hye;
- translator: Shanna Tan;
- publisher: Vintage [?];
- publication date: October 2025;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <책들의 부엌>; author: 김지혜; publisher: 팩토리나인; original publication in Korean: May 2022.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(7.) CHINATOWN
- genre: Bildungsroman / Classic;
- author: Oh Jung Hee;
- translator: Bruce Fulton;
- publisher: Penguin Classics [UK];
- publication date: July 2025;
- original publication in English: 2012, Asia Publishers [Seoul];
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? .
- original book info: title: <중국인 거리>; author: 오정희 ; publisher: 아시아출판사 (2012); original publication in Korean: 2004/2012.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(8.) CAPITALISTS MUST STARVE
- genre: Historical Fiction [early 1930s];
- author: Park Seo-ryeon;
- translator: Anton Hur;
- publisher: Tilted Axis Press;
- publication date: September 2025;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No, but the novel is being compared to RASKLC's July 2025 book Pachinko (both said to have "sweeping historical vision" and be "feminist historical novel[s]," per the London Korean Links).
- original book info: title: <체공녀 강주룡>; author: 박서련; publisher: 한겨레출판사; original publication in Korean: Nov. 2024.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(9.) BROCCOLI PUNCH
- genre: Fantasy, Surrealist;
- author: Lee Yuri;
- translator: Amber HJ Kim;
- publisher: Heloise Press [UK];
- publication date: June 2025;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <브로콜리 펀치>; author: 이유리; publisher: 문학과지성사; original publication in Korean: October 2021.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(10.) THE MIDNIGHT SHIFT
- genre: Horror, Fantasy;
- author: Cheon Seon-ran;
- translator: Gene Png;
- publisher: Bloomsbury [UK];
- publication date: August 2025;
- original publication in English: ;
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <밤에 찾아오는 구원자>; author:
천선란; publisher: 안전가옥 [?]; original publication in Korean: June 2021.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(11.) THE SECOND CHANCE CONVENIENCE STORE
- genre: Healing Fiction;
- author: Kim Ho-yeon;
- translator: Janet Hong;
- publisher: Harper Perennial [UK];
- publication date: June 2025;
- original publication in English: (same?)
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <불편한 편의점 1>; author: 김호연; publisher: 나무옆의자 [?]; original publication in Korean: April 2021.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(12.) IF WE CANNOT GO AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT
- genre: Science Fiction;
- author: Kim Choyeop;
- translator: Anton Hur;
- publisher: S&S/Saga Press [UK];
- publication date: April 2026;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <우리가 빛의 속도로 갈 수 없다면>; author:
김초엽; publisher: 허블; original publication in Korean: June 2019.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(13.) A MIDNIGHT PASTRY SHOP CALLED HWAWOLDANG
- genre: Healing Fiction;
- author: Lee Onhwa;
- translator: Slin Jung;
- publisher: Penguin [UK];
- publication date: November 2025;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <시간이 멈춰 선 화과자점, 화월당입니다>; author: 이온화; publisher: 다이브; original publication in Korean: December 2024.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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(14.) TO THE MOON
- genre: Romance?;
- author: Jang Ryujin;
- translator: Sean Lin Halbert;
- publisher: Bloomsbury [UK];
- publication date: June 2025;
- original publication in English: (same?);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <달까지 가자>; author: 장류진; publisher: 창비; original publication in Korean: April 2021.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
NOTE: To the Moon has been adapted to air as a tv-drama in South Korea starting in September 2025.
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(15.) ROADKILL
- genre: Science Fiction;
- author: Amil;
- translator: Archana Madhavan;
- publisher: Harvill Secker [UK];
- publication date: August 2025;
- original publication in English: (same);
- read by the RAS Korean Literature Club? No.
- original book info: title: <로드킬>; author: 아밀 (said to be pen-name of a 김지현); publisher: 비채; original publication in Korean: July 2021.
-- -- Goodreads link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
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Mod
The mid-2025 to mid-2026 Korean-to-English-translation published books in the UK by primary genre, as per the running list so far:
- Science Fiction: 4 / 15
- Healing Fiction: 3 / 15
- Horror: 3 / 15
- Fantasy: 1 / 15
- Historical Fiction: 1 / 15 [it's 1930s Pyongyang; see No.8 on list.]
- Classic (Bildungsroman): 1 / 15
- General literary fiction: 1 / 15 (No.5)
- Romance?: 1 / 15 (No. 14; it's being published in English because the novel has been converted into a tv-series this year and is therefore expected to sell; not, however, likely of real interest to the Booker people).
We get some good sense, from that breakdown, of the current trend in Korean-to-English translated-fiction.
With the understanding in mind that this is a "lagging indicator": between publishers' noticing of the trend in the market and initial publication, there is a certain time-lag. That is true always and everywhere, but in our case it's compounded by the translation and marketing process. This I think will add up to at least a full year, and probably more, of lag between Korean trend --> publication in English.
(From publication to median point of reader-consumption will add on another time-lag, of uncertain length depending on many factors.)
---> Lesson 1: Healing Fiction is still strong, but I cannot imagine anything from the genre winning the International Booker Prize. Even being longlisted would be a surprise.
---> Lesson 2: The Science Fiction (SF) trend in Korean literature (which emerged almost out of nowhere in the late 2010s and found its footing in the early 2020s) and now in Korean-to-English translated-fiction, may today already have the leading spot; that is to say, it may have passed Healing Fiction.
---> Lesson 3: Horror novels are doing well, but probably because of the overlap with Fantasy. Rising to three publications is due to the latecomer republishing of Hole in the UK. (Previously only published in the US, it seems, with limited reach at the time.)
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The Horror-Fantasy overlap applies to this year's Cheon Seon-ran novel. (See No.10 on the list.) Cheon Seon-ran is author of the well-received A Thousand Blues, put out in English earlier this year (in the 2024-25 Booker timeframe). I can see certain reasons why some judge-panels might incline towards that kind of writer or book.
QUASI-PREDICTION: I wouldn't be surprised if Cheon Seon-ran is at least longlisted in 2026. That's a guess based on zero knowledge of her book, except her reputation and genre. You read it here first, timestamped July 2025. // Note: Not a full prediction; rather, an "I wouldn't be surprised if" coward's prediction. (I have her Thousand Blues book somewhere and when I have time will read it to update my prediction depending on how much I agree, or not, with the consensus that it's good.)
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Korean SF novels overlap with fantasy. It's hard to definitely distinguish them. I'm not sure whether SF-oriented novels are more likely to me to do well in the Booker competition.
We do have the precedent of Bora Chung's watershed 2022 shortlisting for the International Booker Prize, with her mixed-genre Cursed Bunny. It was mainly Fantasy, some of the stories certainly with elements of Science Fiction. The GoodReads entry for Cursed Bunny also classes it as Horror, which is at-most secondary (in my view) but not absent especially in one or two of the stories towards the end.
Incidentally, and speaking of Bora Chung's Korean-to-English translations... Here is another data-point for you:
The number of the 2025-26 books translated by Anton Hur is: 3 / 15.
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Hmmm. I have nothing intelligent to say on this topic other than that I did read book 11 on the above list and I'm irritated to see the English translation is so lame. "The Inconvenient Convenience Store" would exactly reflect the Korean title and show some of the books humor as well as the reality that the convenience store in question wasn't very well stocked and was less nice than other convenience stores.
I'm surprised Hole and Chinatown haven't been published in the UK before.
Hannah wrote: "Hmmm. I have nothing intelligent to say on this topic other than that I did read book 11 on the above list and I'm irritated to see the English translation is so lame. "The Inconvenient Convenience..."I've generally stopped reading healing lit, but Janet Hong is a veteran translator with many great books to her credit. Plus the titles of translations, at least in the Anglophone world, are often imposed by the publisher. In this case "Second Chance Convenience Store" clearly signals healing lit whereas "Inconvenient Convenience Store" simply suggests humor and maybe a bit of whimsy. Could be wrong but that's my guess.
Hannah wrote: "Hmmm. ..."BTW I just remembered a clear example of calculated translation retitling that I ran across a couple days ago. It's Counsel Culture ()original 2022), tr. by Jaimie Chang (Restless Books [a small activistic US publisher], 2024). The original title is Gyeongcheong '(attentive) listening' as in gyeongcheonghada. It is approximately rendered by English 'counsel' (for 'counseling'), which is the main character's profession, but then 'culture' is added call up "cancel culture", which the character has fallen victim to. The new title does not in itself clearly indicate what kind of book the work is, but the two cats on the cover, the presence of at least one cat in the story, and the simple language of the narrative leave little doubt that it's been identified by the publisher and positioned as yet another piece of healing lit, in tghis case one loosely comparable to Baek Sehee, Want to Die But I Want to Eat Tteokbokki (2018), tr. Anton Hur (Bloomsbury, 2022).
Yes, I agree the English title is signaling that it's a healing book but the signal seems a bit overbearing and makes the book seem more one-dimensional than it deserves. Probably is something from the publisher just like authors don't have control over the titles of their own newspaper articles, so I've heard. I wouldn't have bothered to read the looking at the English title, but when I first encountered it a few years ago I saw it and read it in the original Korean. I don't tend to like healing literature but I did like this book, perhaps because when I read it I was unaware it was supposed to be healing me, and didn't realize people would be given second chances until I uncovered that myself. The Counsel Culture title is clever I guess, but sometimes I get tired of the mental energy it takes me to talk about media in both languages when titles are different. This happens all the time with kdramas and movies.
I've read:(1.) The Hole by Hye-young Pyun (tr. Sora Kim-Russell);
(2.) Red Sword by Bora Chung (tr. Anton Hur);
(3.) Hunger by Choi Jin-young (tr. Soje);
(4.) Failed Summer Vacation by Heuijung Hur (tr. Paige Aniyah Morris);
(5.) Blowfish by Kyung-ran Jo (tr. Chi Young Kim);
(6.) Soyangri Book Kitchen by Kim Jee-hye (tr. Shanna Tan);
(9.) Broccoli Punch by Lee Yuri (tr. Amber HJ Kim);
(10.) The Midnight Shift by Cheon Seon-ran (tr. Gene Png);
(11.) The Second Chance Convenience Store by Kim Ho-yeon (tr. Janet Hong);
(13.) A Midnight Pastry Shop Called Hwawoldang by Lee Onhwa (tr. Slin Jung);
(14.) To the Moon by Jang Ryujin (tr. Sean Lin Halbert);
Awaiting publication of:
(7.) Chinatown by Oh Jung Hee (tr. Bruce Fulton);
(8.) Capitalists Must Starve by Park Seo-ryeon (tr. Anton Hur);
(12.) If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light by Kim Cho-yeop (tr. Anton Hur);
(15.) Roadkill by Amil (tr. Archana Madhavan);
If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light I've seen UK publication date that could slip into May 2026.
What about:Snowglobe 2: The conclusion to the groundbreaking Korean YA thriller
The Wizard's Bakery
Art on Fire - that's published by Scribe UK in September
Petty Lies - Mulholland have a UK imprint, I need to check if they are publishing in UK
Hakuda Photo Studio - from John Murray (apparently out soon)
Hannah wrote: "Yes, I agree the English title is signaling that it's a healing book but the signal seems a bit overbearing and makes the book seem more one-dimensional than it deserves. Probably is something from..."Fair enough. The impression I got from the first blurb I read was that the book had a clear central figure and narrative arc and might be better than the average Korean Healing lit entry. I don't take cats on the cover too seriously, but the cat in the actual story gives me pause... :)
As to retitling the translations of Korean works for salience or market appeal, the practice goes back a long way and includes both “academic” and “general” publications. Just in the list of Korean novels by period I posted a few days ago I noted ten examples:
• Kang Kyŏng-ae, From Wonso Pond (1934), tr. Samuel Perry (The Feminist Press at CUNY, 2009) [Orig Human Problems (ingan munje)]
• Kim Tong-ni, The Shaman Sorceress (1978), tr. Hyun Song Shin and Eugene Chung (Routledge, 1989) [Orig Eulhwa (the name of the shaman)]
• Jung-Myung Lee, The Investigation (2012), tr. Chi-Young Kim (Pegasus Books, 2015) [Orig The wind that touches the stars]
• Ahn Junghyo, White Badge (1983, rev. 1989), tr. Ahn Junghyo (Soho Press, 1989) [Orig War and the City (1983), White War (1989)]
• Yang Kwija, A Distant and Beautiful Place (1987), tr. Kim So-young and Julie Pickering (University of Hawaii Press, 2003) [Orig The People of Wonmi-dong]
• Shin Kyung-sook, The Girl who Wrote Loneliness (1995), tr. Ha-yun Jung (Pegasus Books, 2015). [Orig The Lone Room (oittan bang)]
• Ch'ŏn Un-yŏng, The Catcher in the Loft (2011), tr, Bruce and Ju-chan Fulton (Codhill Press, 2019) [Orig Ginger (Saenggang)]
• Han Kang, Human Acts: A Novel (2014), tr. Deborah Smith (Hogarth, 2016) [Orig The Boy is Coming]
• Bae Suah, Recitation (2011), tr. Deborah Smith (Deep Vellum Publishing, 2017) [Orig The Low Hills of Seoul]
• Ch’oe In-ho, Another Man’s City (2011), tr. Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton (Dalkey Archive Press, 2014) [Orig City of Familiar Strangers (nachigeun taindeurui dosi - more a mistranslation than a change)]
I can mostly accept them, but one I can't, namely the retitling of . Shin Kyung-sook’s book, which she originally named The Lone (or Solitary) Room and was renamed by the publisher (Pegasus Books) to the romantically flavored The Girl who Wrote Loneliness and provided with a cover to match. But hey if it helped sell copies I guess I shouldn’t complain, because it is a truly great novel, not only Shin’s best so far (in translation), but IMO one of the best Korean novels ever written.
Re Peter’s list, I have read:The Hole by Hye-young Pyun (tr. Sora Kim-Russell) – great book, a rare Korean crossover from genre to serious literary fiction
(2.) Red Sword by Bora Chung (tr. Anton Hur) – read a few weeks ago, had high hopes and was very disappointed, as I explain in my GR review
(7.) Chinatown by Oh Jung Hee (tr. Bruce Fulton) – admittedly in a different translation, also bilingual, tr. Peggy C. Cho, illust. Nam Ju-hyeon (Hollym, 2004) – the story is so straightforward that I doubt the two translations, originally appearing just a year apart, would be very different [EDIT: I just noticed that the book soon to be published by Penguin Classics, though titled simply Chinatown (at least provisionally), contains Bruce and Ju-Chan Fulton's translations not just of Oh Jung-hee's Chinatown but also a number of her other stories, which opens the possibility that the translation of Chinatown may have been revised at some point]
As of now I have no plans to read any of the others in the list, at least until I see reviews that make me think I should – the most likely ones being Art on Fire by Yun Ko-Eun because of her track record with Disaster Tourist and Table For One, both of which were a bit light for my tastes but smart and satirical, and Counsel Culture by Kim Hye-jin because of group member Hannah’s positive recommendation.
Mod
Quick update: --- This group, the Korean Literature Club, for its August 2025 session is reading: Blowfish by Jo Kyung-ran, translated by Chi-young Kim, official publication, July 2025.
I'd propose that Blowfish is a plausible longlist contender for the 2026 International Booker. It may be exactly the sort of book that the Booker judges are fond of.
Jo Kyung-ran has never been nominated before. Translator Chi-young Kim was nominated once, for Whale , in 2023 (shortlisted).
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Mod
This list needs some updating.
The International Booker 2026 longlist is to be announced in late February 2026, applying to books published in the UK May 2025 thru April 2026. We should be able to determine all the eligible books by now.
Mod
Less than a week remains until the International Book Prize nominees are released (February 24, 2026).
I hear from sources in position to know that Korean works aren't likely to go far this time.
But maybe someone has better info?
Mod
Just for fun:
I'll repost here the interviews with the 2026 International Booker Prize judges. These interviews were released today. (Originals were published at TheBookerPrizes dot com; GR does not like external links these days.)
Some people (a small few) like to use such texts as these to find clues and tease out insights into how the judges are thinking and judging, as a way to explain the ultimate longlist, shortlist, and winner.
The wording suggests these interviews were conducted in the middle of 2025, around the start of the judging process. Since a much larger number of people are now paying attention in the week or so before the longlist is announced (Feb 24, 2026), they've published the interviews.
Ethnolinguistically speaking, the five International Booker Prize judges in 2026 are:
-- two Black (one Black-British, of Jamaican origin; one Kenyan),
-- two White (both British; one Jewish), and
-- one of Hindu-Indian origin.
-- The chair of the judging panel is the Black-British woman of Jamaican origin.
These are the five:
- Natasha Brown, chair (b.1990; Black-British, Jamaican origin; fiction writer)
- Marcus du Sautoy (b.1965; White British convert to Judaism; mathematics professor);
- Sophie Hughes (b.1986; White British?, Spanish/English literary translator);
- Troy Onyango (b.1993; Kenya; writer and editor);
- Nilanjana S. Roy (b.1971?; Hindu-Indian origin; "journalist, literary critic, editor, and author").
The interviews (the following five posts):
Mod
INTERVIEW WITH NATASHA BROWN
2026 International Booker Prize judge (chair)
‘Reading is always an act of border crossing’ --- International Booker Prize 2026 Chair of judges Natasha Brown reflects on her love of books that are surprising and daring, and the endless creative possibilities of fiction in translation
Published February 17, 2026
[NOTE: Natasha Brown was born in the UK in 1990 to two Black Jamaican parents. She is a graduate of the University of Cambridge with a mathematics degree. Active as a fiction writer since 2019. Nominated for many literary prizes in the 2020s, including the (main) Booker Prize in 2025, shortly after which she was appointed chair for the 2026 International Booker Prize judges' panel. --PJ]
Q. You will read more than 100 books over seven months as an International Booker Prize judge. How are you approaching this unique challenge, and what are your tips for busy people who want to find more time for reading?
NATASHA BROWN: The total number of books sounds daunting. My approach has been to break it down into a daily routine: I try to spend a couple of hours reading first thing each morning and then pick up again in the early evening. Although I prefer to read physical books, switching to a tablet has given me much more flexibility – wherever I am, I’ve always got my current and next reads with me.
Q, What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the International Booker Prize longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?
NATASHA BROWN: I love finding books that are surprising and daring, written with an irresistible style.
Q. What do you think, if anything, good translations can bring to the original language version of a work of fiction?
NATASHA BROWN: When bridging across languages, it’s almost impossible to preserve the original meaning – let alone every nuance of wordplay, sound, and cultural relevance – exactly. Between the translator and author, choices must be made. To me, that joint artistic effort creates a new interpretation of the original book, with endless creative possibilities.
Q. The International Booker Prize is celebrating its 10th birthday in its current form in 2026. How do you think the International Booker has changed the landscape and the perception of translated fiction over the last decade, and why does this award matter?
NATASHA BROWN: This prize has an enormous influence on what publishers choose to translate into English, which shapes the literature available to English-language readers. The results are clear. Today, the range and variety of contemporary translated fiction readily available in bookstores and libraries is unbelievable. It allows me to broaden my horizons as a reader and discover some really spectacular books.
Q. The theme of the International Booker Prize 2026 campaign is ‘Fiction beyond borders’. How do you think the International Booker, and translated fiction generally, helps readers see beyond geographical boundaries? Why is that important?
NATASHA BROWN: Reading is always an act of border crossing. When we read, we allow someone else’s words to become a part of our own thoughts. I think that makes reading uniquely immersive. Fiction can transport us into different worlds and offer up new ways of looking at the familiar.
(End of 2026 Int'l Booker Prize judge interview with Natasha Brown.)
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COMMENT (PJ): The International Booker Prize is for non-English-language fiction works translated into English and published by regular processes in the UK within a certain 12-month span. Does 2026 judging-panel chair Natasha Brown speak/read other languages?
If the report that her parents are both Jamaicans, I would assume she doesn't have any non-English heritage language. She may have learned one or more languages in school or the like. If so, I wonder what they are.
Just in case she -- or any translation-fiction contest judge past, present, or future -- doesn't "have any other languages," how might not affect the result? Surely it must.
On now to Marcus Du Sautoy, mathematician (and writer in his own right as a popularizer of mathematics, but clearly the grounding-outsider choice for 2026)...
Mod
INTERVIEW WITH MARCUS DU SAUTOY
2026 International Booker Prize judge
‘Reading is a muscle – the more you exercise it, the easier it gets’ --- International Booker Prize 2026 judge Marcus du Sautoy reflects on the privilege of being a judge, and reveals how a commitment to read more has cured his social media addiction
Published February 17, 2026
[NOTE: Marcus du Sautoy, b.1965, is a professor mathematics at Oxford. He is of White-British origin and apparently converted to Judaism some time ago, has ties to Israel, where he met his wife. Wiki notes they are raising their children Jewish. Marcus is the author of a number of popularizing books on math/science. For literary fiction, he himself must count as an outsider (although his grandfather was chairman and publisher of a major UK publishing house, Faber & Faber, where his influence was at its height in the 1960s-70s). -- PJ.]
[NOTE on 'outsider' judges: The Booker Prize committee always chooses at least one full-on outsider. It's envisioned as ballast to literary-insider world people. Recent examples: the regular Booker 2025 judge panel included Sarah Jessica Parker, actress; and the 2025 International Booker panel having UK "folk-electronica" singer Beth Orton, the views and sensibilities of which in some way must have balanced those brought by others 2025 judges, like Anton Hur for one... --PJ]
Q. You will read more than 100 books over seven months as an International Booker Prize judge. How are you approaching this unique challenge, and what are your tips for busy people who want to find more time for reading?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: I wish I knew some secret tips to reading over 100 books in seven months, but the truth is I haven’t discovered a secret formula. It has basically taken over my life. I guess reading, like writing, is a muscle and the more you exercise it, the easier it gets. I can certainly sustain longer periods of reading than I perhaps could at the beginning of this marathon. The one thing that it has achieved is to cure me of my addiction to social media. The first thing I do in the morning is reach for a novel rather than my mobile phone.
Q. What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the International Booker Prize longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: I decided to just start reading and to allow the qualities that make a great book to emerge organically, rather than imposing criterion that I was looking for at the beginning. I think it’s like trying to define beauty. Impossible, but you know it when you see it. I wanted to be open and to allow books to win me over and surprise me.
Q. What do you think, if anything, good translations can bring to the original language version of a work of fiction?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY I have always been someone who loves reading books in translation and I realised quite quickly that a translator can make or break a book. I’ve read different versions of classic Russian fiction, for example, and been astounded how one translation is unreadable while another can make the book sing. There have been some fascinating translation challenges in the books that we have read that reveal how important a good translator is to bringing a book to an English-speaking audience. Still very much a human skill that AI won’t get anywhere near… yet!
Q. The International Booker Prize is celebrating its 10th birthday in its current form in 2026. How do you think the prize has changed the landscape and the perception of translated fiction over the last decade, and why does this award matter?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: I have had quite a few people say that as a judge on the International Booker Prize I have a real responsibility to readers to pick out the top translated fiction for this year. There are so many books published each year (which I can testify to, given the boxes of books I’ve read for this prize) that there is no way people can read all of them themselves. I realised how much people appreciate the work the International Booker Prize does in highlighting those books from around the world that are worth the time to read.
Q. The theme of the International Booker Prize 2026 campaign is ‘Fiction beyond borders’. How do you think the International Booker, and translated fiction generally, helps readers see beyond geographical boundaries? Why is that important?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: It has been such a privilege as a judge to go Around the Literary World in 80 Novels (except it was a lot more than 80). To be spooked by a Korean ghost story one day, then to escape a south American prison the next and then plunge into the fiords of Norway the day after. Being a judge has certainly taken me beyond many borders and exposed me to worlds, lives and writing traditions that are so varied and different from the novels I usually read. My mathematics has always connected me with people from around the world, but I’ve discovered through judging this prize how fiction, too, can be an amazing passport to the world.
Q. What’s your favourite International Booker-nominated book since 2016 and what’s special about it? Who would you recommend it to?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: Benjamin Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World (translated by Adrian Nathan West, shortlisted in 2021). Such a daring mix of fiction and non-fiction, almost like a new genre of storytelling. To meet fictional versions of my real-life mathematical heroes like Grothendieck, Mochizuki, Heisenberg and others was a lot of fun. The challenge of pushing the boundaries of scientific knowledge has important implications for us all, which is why I’d recommend this book to everyone.
Q. What book made you fall in love with reading as a child? How and why did it capture your imagination?
MARCUS DU SAUTOY: I was not a big reader as a child but it was Tove Jansson’s Moomintroll books that helped me fall in love with reading. Such a brilliant range of characters, like the mischievous Little My and, my favourite, the wandering Snufkin. I wonder if my love of Moomin Valley is why I’ve really enjoyed the novels we’ve read this year from the Nordic countries.
(End of 2026 Int'l Booker Prize judge interview with Marcus du Sautoy.)
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COMMENT (PJ): Did you notice that Professor du Sautoy made reference to "being spooked by a Korean ghost story"?
This may be a reference to Bora Chung "Midnight Timetable" (translated by the ubiquitous Anton Hur)?
Might it refer to the Honford Star "Lovecraft Reanimated" books? Either "Alien Gods" (this Club's March 2026 book) or "Come Down to a Lower Place"?
There is plentiful commentary hereabouts on the Lovecraft Reanimated books. If the Lovecraft books are the one(s) being referenced, and on the outside chance they were being considered for longlisting, I even wonder if any of the judges sought out info on them and came across my event-summary of the series launch-event from December 2025? (See: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iaRD... and GR version: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...).
Onward now to Sophie Hughes, Spanish-English translator...
Mod
INTERVIEW WITH SOPHIE HUGHES
2026 International Booker Prize judge
‘Reading fiction is a tonic, taking you out of yourself to come back to yourself’ --- International Booker Prize 2026 judge Sophie Hughes reflects on the sense of connection translated fiction can bring, and the qualities she’s looking for among this year’s submissions
Published February 17, 2026
[NOTE: Sophie Hughes is British, born 1986, active literary translator from Spanish into English since the mid-2010s. She has been nominated (as a translator) for the International Booker Prize five times between 2019 and 2025, in addition to other awards. She fills the professional-translator slot on the judging panel, though she works in the warm environs of translation between European languages and not across the troubling chasm presented by Asian languages translated into English. --PJ]
Q. You will read more than 100 books over seven months as an International Booker Prize judge. How are you approaching this unique challenge, and what are your tips for busy people who want to find more time for reading?
SOPHIE HUGHES: Even if I’d done my maths before accepting this role, which I didn’t because I was always going to say yes, I don’t think I could have prepared myself for the, let’s say, persistent nature of the reading requirement. I prefer not to use the word ‘relentless’ because judging the International Booker Prize isn’t a hardship, quite the opposite – it’s made me a much more competent and generous reader and given me hours of reading pleasure (and sadness, fear, anger, glee, disgust…).
But still, there are evenings when, having put my other work and two children to bed, I get an irrepressible and unprecedented urge to feel nothing, to zone out in front of crap content. This not being an option (thanks, chair Natasha, for the spreadsheet showing in the plainest terms how many pages we might like to read a day if we wanted to keep up), instead I pick up my book. And after a couple of pages of resistance (my attention resists, my tired eyes resist, my to-do-list-addled brain resists, even my conscience resists, telling me to check the news or check in on that friend) eventually I zone in and the book starts making me feel things I wasn’t feeling before. Reading fiction is a tonic, taking you out of yourself to come back to yourself. I’m more convinced than ever that it is the perfect pastime for busy people.
Q. What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the International Booker Prize longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?
SOPHIE HUGHES: It turns out that I want authors to be very proficient storytellers, even if they choose to tell their stories obliquely, in reverse, in fragments, as collage, or even self-reflexively.
I want the worldbuilding to be so generous and effective it’s as if a filter has fallen over my eyes when I open the book and re-enter that world, and I want to be there all the time.
I’m looking for translations that show that good translators are just good writers with a different set of constraints. (There are some virtuosos in our midst…) I think my fellow judges and I are all looking for books that linger.
Q. What do you think, if anything, good translations can bring to the original language version of a work of fiction?
SOPHIE HUGHES: My honest answer is that a good translation (assuming the original book is good) brings everything. If a book isn’t well translated, it won’t translate – it won’t cross over, won’t reach anyone or communicate anything. It simply won’t live to tell the tale.
Q. The theme of the International Booker Prize 2026 campaign is ‘Fiction beyond borders’. How do you think the International Booker, and translated fiction generally, helps readers see beyond geographical boundaries? Why is that important?
SOPHIE HUGHES: You know that feeling when you’re reading a novel or story and something happens or someone says something that resonates with you louder than your own thoughts? I’ve had that sense of electrifying connection multiple times over the last seven months, often while reading books by authors from places and cultures I am not only removed from but totally ignorant of. The books I’ve loved the most have been the ones where, when I least expected it, I’ve thought: we’re thinking the same thing.
Q. What’s your favourite International Booker-nominated book since 2016 and what’s special about it? Who would you recommend it to?
SOPHIE HUGHES: Vernon Subutex 1 by Virginie Despentes, translated by Frank Wynne (MacLehose Press). For the person in your life who has inherited the notion that all translations are dry and flat. I’m sure the original version is very good, but the English version is perfection on its own terms.
Q. What book made you fall in love with reading as a child? How and why did it capture your imagination?
SOPHIE HUGHES: I’ve given different answers to this question before, because so many books helped turn me into a reader. In hindsight, I appreciate the ones that didn’t patronise in any way, that left me feeling a bit confused and stretched and scared by concepts and events I didn’t fully understand: Willie’s abusive mother in Michelle Magorian’s Goodnight Mister Tom. I know now that I was extremely lucky to have that early exposure to other people’s lives through books: sometimes they gave me comfort, and sometimes they made me uncomfortable – both essential building blocks of empathy.
(End of 2026 Int'l Booker Prize judge interview with Sophie Hughes.)
Mod
INTERVIEW WITH TROY ONYANGO
2026 International Booker Prize judge
‘Read everything, everywhere, all at once’ --- Troy Onyango explains what he’s hoping to find among this year’s submissions, and shares his tips for finding time to read more
Published February 17, 2026
[NOTE: Troy Onyango, b.1993, is a Kenyan of the same ethnic group within Kenya that Barack Obama's father came from. He was educated in part in the UK and is apparently a practicing lawyer in Kenya. All signs are that he comes from the layer of elite in Kenya from which Obama's father can be associated about sixty years earlier. He has won prizes for short stories, written for magazines, and formed an online literary journal in Kenya but he does not appear to deal in translation. --PJ]
Q. You will read more than 100 books over seven months as an International Booker Prize judge. How are you approaching this unique challenge, and what are your tips for busy people who want to find more time for reading?
TROY ONYANGO: Having done this while having a full-time job and running a literary magazine, I can say it’s completely changed my relationship to books and reading forever. I have always thought of myself as a big and fast reader (as I have to read almost all day for work and for the magazine) but this was on another level. It’s like the Olympics! Or the Safari Rally!
The trick (if I can call it that) I have found is polyreadership; read everything, everywhere, all at once. Any time you have is for reading. I wake up early and go to bed late to get extra time to read. I have turned down some social events. I haven’t gone to the theatre or cinema as much as the previous years. Everywhere I go, I carry my iPad with me so that I can read and switch between books. It has felt like a fever dream of sorts.
Q. What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the International Booker Prize longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?
TROY ONYANGO: The judging process is a treasure hunt and one never knows exactly what or where the treasure is, but for me it has been a case of ‘I’ll know it when I see it’. I have been excited to search through as I read and have stayed as open to possibilities as possible.
In general, I love a book that is bold, daring, ambitious, and loud… loud in the sense that it knows what it is and it takes up so much space there’s little room for others. That’s how I know what’s memorable. I love a book that stays with me long after I’ve read it and leaves me asking questions when I have put it down. I think any great book is a memorable book (and vice versa).
I also love a book that plays with language and is inventive/innovative. Any book that pushes the boundaries of what I know or have seen before has my heart.
Q. What do you think a good translation can bring to the original language version of a work of fiction?
TROY ONYANGO: A great translation gives a book a new lease of life. It gets under the skin of the original language and pushes until the resulting text becomes radically different, while the story remains as close to the original as possible, with no less depth or clarity.
Q. The International Booker Prize is celebrating its 10th birthday in its current form in 2026. How do you think the International Booker has changed the landscape and the perception of translated fiction over the last decade, and why does this award matter?
TROY ONYANGO: This is probably my favourite literary prize in the whole world (and I’m not just saying this because I’m on the judging panel) because it has introduced me to books I would have never been aware of if they weren’t longlisted or shortlisted for the prize. I have followed the prize very closely and I’m always excited when I read the books that have been nominated for it. I should hope this is how the prize makes other people feel, too. The whole project is the Booker Prize Foundation’s gift to the world of literature. We need more translated fiction being placed in the hands of readers, and this is the natural place for it to be celebrated.
Q. The theme of the International Booker Prize 2026 campaign is ‘Fiction beyond borders’. How do you think the International Booker, and translated fiction generally, helps readers see beyond geographical boundaries? Why is that important?
TROY ONYANGO: Books allow us to travel to countries and cities and towns and villages we might never go to. We learn so much about other people’s cultures and it is as though we speak their language in the moments we are with them in those pages. Translated fiction expands the list of countries we can travel to, and allows us even greater access to stories from which we would have otherwise been locked out. The International Booker has facilitated this access for so many readers, allowing us to find books and stories beyond those from our own nations or languages.
Q. What’s your favourite International Booker-nominated book since 2016 and what’s special about it? Who would you recommend it to?
TROY ONYANGO: Oh, I can’t choose only one. Absolutely not! I love At Night All Blood is Black, Crooked Plow, The Vegetarian, A General Theory of Oblivion, Tram 83, Celestial Bodies, Under the Eye of the Big Bird, Standing Heavy, Minor Detail and many, many more that have been on the International Booker Prize long- and shortlists. They’re all unique and special in their own way and I could spend days talking about them. I recommend them to all who love great books!
Q. What book made you fall in love with reading as a child? How and why did it capture your imagination?
TROY ONYANGO: The first storyteller in my life was my great-grandmother who loved to tell stories and made me fall in love with reading. I believe that oral tradition is just as important as written stories. I didn’t have access to many story books as a child as the priority was school textbooks. I sought out as much as I could, whenever I could. As I got older, I loved reading writers like Grace Ogot, Margaret Ogolla, Barbara Kimenye, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and many others who shaped my literary imagination.
(End of 2026 Int'l Booker Prize judge interview with Troy Onyango.)
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COMMENT (PJ): I'm surprised to see Troy Onyango mentioned "The Vegetarian" (Han Kang) was one of his favorites. It was prominent for winning the 2016 contest (a story that, if you ask me, still deserves explanation; and which probably also indirectly led to the shock and controversial Nobel Prize win for Han Kang in 2024).
Mod
INTERVIEW WITH NILANJANA S. ROY
2026 International Booker Prize judge
‘Great fiction takes you to places beyond the reach of maps’ --- Nilanjana S. Roy reflects on the power of translated fiction to change hearts and minds – and why busy people, especially, should find time to read more
Published February 17, 2026
Q. You will read more than 100 books over seven months as an International Booker Prize judge. How are you approaching this unique challenge, and what are your tips for busy people who want to find more time for reading?
NILANJANA ROY: We’re spending this year with over 200 gifted, creative authors and translators, the murmur of languages from at least five continents in our ears. I’ve spent most of my life reading for work and for pleasure, but reading for the International Booker is a true gift, an experience with few parallels.
The actual reading is a breeze: start reading at 6am, finish reading by 2am, and embrace the social life of a misanthropic ascetic for a year. More seriously, the real challenge is to make sure that you give every book a fair chance, to try to read with generosity and openness as well as a critical eye.
The Financial Times’ Literary Editor, Fred Studemann was part of the 2023 jury and gave me a really useful tip: make notes as you read each book, when it’s still fresh in your mind. It’s the only way to do justice to everything we read, given the pace at which the books arrive.
Busy people need to know that reading is one of the greatest refuges you can give yourself from the rushed schedule, the overflowing day. I’d suggest scheduling unbreakable bookshop and library appointments into your month, just as you do with corporate engagements.
Scatter physical books around your home and workspaces, so that you never have to hunt for something to read – it’s much easier to build a reading habit that way.
Load up your Kindle before long business trips – if you don’t have time to browse or research what to read, look out for Best of 2026 or Summer Reading / Holiday Reading book lists in the newspapers. Or just buy everything on the International Booker longlists from 2016 onwards, and I promise you’re sorted for life.
Q. What are you hoping to find as you select the books for the International Booker Prize longlist? Are there certain qualities or attributes that you’re looking for?
NILANJANA ROY: Fiction is such a vast landscape; cleverly planned gardens here, wilderness and ancient grasslands over there, room enough for both. It’s easy to stick with what’s familiar to today’s readers, but writers tend to be far-seers, and the best of fiction, however timely, also has a quality of timelessness to it. You could imagine returning to those books again and again, or re-reading them decades later, and still being surprised or entertained.
I hope to discover authors and translators from all over, including those who live and create in languages that are not historically dominant, whose books will remain a source of illumination or astonishment, or will continue to unsettle readers, 10 or 20 years from now. Speaking personally, I’m especially curious about storytelling traditions that broaden your sense of what a novel or a short story can be. Good fiction can take you to interesting places; great fiction takes you to places that are beyond the reach of maps.
Q. What do you think, if anything, good translations can bring to the original language version of a work of fiction?
NILANJANA ROY: As a writer, I know first-hand that translators perform miracles – they are shapeshifters and choreographers, as well as co-authors. A great translation captures the spirit, energy and rhythm of the original, but it can also illuminate or deepen aspects of the text. Just as singers interpret the same raga in diverse shades, and conductors stay faithful to a concerto or an opera while offering strikingly different interpretations, every great translator breathes fresh life into novels and stories.
Q. The International Booker Prize is celebrating its 10th birthday in its current form in 2026. How do you think the prize has changed the landscape and the perception of translated fiction over the last decade, and why does this award matter?
NILANJANA ROY: As a reader, I probably discovered more authors and translators through the International Booker’s longlists than through any other literary award. I read somewhere that the prize has featured books from over 60 languages since 2016 – for readers like me, we’re discovering authors we could not have found in any other way.
I love that the International Booker Prize gave equal respect and space to translators from its inception in 2016, and that has helped deepen the conversation around translation. Readers under 30 are, famously, very open to reading in translation, and this prize has created a platform for – and a thoughtful conversation around – translation over the years. Winners experience a massive ‘Booker boom’ in sales. The prize is trusted by readers, much like the other Booker Prize – perhaps because the International Booker works extremely hard behind the scenes to try to maintain integrity, ethics and a sense of literary value throughout the awards process.
Perhaps juries notice this more than readers, but the submissions to the International Booker Prize are also a running tribute to independent publishers, often small houses with an appetite for risk and a thirst for discovery.
An example of why it matters – in 2022, Geetanjali Shree’s Tomb of Sand, translated by Daisy Rockwell, became the first novel in Hindi to win the International Booker Prize, and in 2025, Banu Mushtaq won for Heart Lamp, written in Kannada and translated by Deepa Bhasthi, sparking celebrations and a sense of pride across India. Hindi is spoken by roughly 345 million people, and Kannada has a literary tradition that goes back over 2,000 years – and yet, most global readers know Indian fiction chiefly via English-language works. I imagine many countries around the world have a similar story – the recognition and the visibility that the International Booker Prize brings in its wake restores a balance that had been tilted too far towards English.
Q. The theme of the International Booker Prize 2026 campaign is ‘Fiction beyond borders’. How do you think the International Booker, and translated fiction generally, helps readers see beyond geographical boundaries? Why is that important?
NILANJANA ROY: We live in a time when old wars and ancient bigotries are, unfortunately, being revived, and when the world can feel fractured and fragmented. I’m a realist, and while I understand that literature might not change geopolitics, it does change hearts and minds.
Translations bring us closer together, help us understand and listen to one another; it makes the strange familiar, and a good translation is so often a portal to another realm. You can only hate or distrust what you don’t know – the awakening of curiosity or empathy challenges unthinking hate. As with some forms of music or film, much of modern translated fiction has the power to cut through propaganda and bigotry, simply by letting us see each other more clearly.
Q. What’s your favourite International Booker-nominated book since 2016 and what’s special about it? Who would you recommend it to?
NILANJANA ROY: It’s so hard to choose just one! Three of my favourites to give to readers just crossing the threshold into their 20s, because these are gateway drugs into the pleasure of translated fiction: The Vegetarian by Han Kang (winner, 2016), translated by Deborah Smith; Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft (winner, 2018); The Years by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L Strayer (shortlisted, 2019).
Q. What book made you fall in love with reading as a child? How and why did it capture your imagination?
NILANJANA ROY: AA Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories were hypnotic. In my imagination, our back garden transformed into the Hundred Acre Wood, and I joined Pooh and Piglet on ‘Expotitions’. But the love of reading, the pleasure of language itself, also came from Abol Tabol, Sukumar Ray’s timeless, deathless collection of Bengali nonsense verse, first published in 1923, still loved and recited by generations of children.
And the first book I read to pieces, loving these stories of a Russian family adopted by heaps of animals from tigers to donkeys and wolves, was a translation – the Soviet author Olga Perovskaya’s funny, poignant Kids and Cubs (1966), translated by Fainna Glagoleva. Perovskaya made me laugh, and cry buckets, and want to either adopt wolves or be a young wolf: it was everything you could want from literature.
(End of 2026 Int'l Booker Prize judge interview with Nilanjana S. Roy.)
Mod
The 13-book Int'l Booker 2026 longlist is out. As predicted by some, Korea was shut out. Asia was largely shut out.
Except for the two nods to Iran (topical in the news, to say the least), it's an extremely Western-centric list.
I earlier speculated that the 2026 judges' lack of language skills or ties beyond Europe and Western languages might yield a result like this. Not that there's anything wrong with the nominees!
_________
Summary of the longlist nominees:
- 1 nominee is a book from East Asia (Yang Shuang-zi, Taiwan).
- 11 of 13 are translations (into English) from other European languages.
- 8 nominated authors are White Westerners, 1 nominated author is Black (Marie NDiaye, from France, writing in French), 1 is a nonwhite Brazilian (Ana Paula Maia), 1 Taiwanese, 2 of Iranian origin (Shida Bazyar, born in 1988 to Iran political-dissidents whom West Germany had given asylum; she's never left).
- 2 books deal with Iran in some way (of which one is original Persian, one original German).
The RAS Korean Literature Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Alien Gods (other topics)Come Down to a Lower Place (other topics)
Midnight Timetable: A Novel in Ghost Stories (other topics)
Whale (other topics)
Blowfish (other topics)
More...
Related to the "Korean authors and the International Booker Prize" (https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...) but about 2026. The data and discussion in the other thread covers the period May 2015 to May 2025. Here, I propose to focus on (ask about) the upcoming 2026 prize.
The International Booker Prize has emerged as an important, attention-getting, prestige prize in literary translation-into-English.
https://thebookerprizes.com/internati...
It's probably true that the shock awarding of the Nobel Prize in Literature to the Korean author Han Kang would never have even been considered without the earlier (2016) awarding of the International Booker Prize to her.
Korean authors and translators have done extremely well in this International Booker contest, as I showed here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/.... In principle, of course, there is never any guarantee about future success, but speculation has never hurt too many people.
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Here is the 2026 info:
____________
International Booker Prize 2026 judges:
- Natasha Brown; chair
- Marcus du Sautoy
- Sophie Hughes
- Troy Onyango
- Nilanjana S. Roy
ELIGIBILITY: "Submissions for the International Booker Prize 2026 are now open. Eligible works are those published between 1 May 2025 and 30 April 2026."
WHO MAY SUBMIT: "Only publishers based in the UK and/or Ireland can submit entries to the prize. Authors, translators and agents are not permitted to enter the prizes directly."
- LONGLIST: to be announced February 24, 2026
--- 12 or 13 books
- SHORTLIST: to be announced March 31, 2026
--- 6 books
- WINNER to be announced at a grand ceremony in London, around late-May 2026 (the ten-year anniversary of the surprise win by The Vegetarian, by Han Kang)
--- 1 book
Going on the 2016-2025 data, statistical probability gives us a 51% chance that at least one Korean-original novel will appear on the 2026 longlist, and if one does appear on the longlist a quite-strong chance it will go onto the shortlist.
That's based on the "7 Korean / 130 Total" sample (see: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... and on there being 13 slots for to-be-longlisted books in 2026.
Given that the 2025 longlist had no Korean books, chances for 2026 may be higher than the calculated 51%.
_________
The next logical question is, which Korean-to-English-translated fiction is being published in the UK between May 2025 and April 2026?
One such work, at least, we know about, this Korean Literature Club having read it for our June 2025 gathering: Red Sword .
It doesn't seem likely at all, to me, that Red Sword would win, or even make the longlist, for 2026. But it is eligible. The novel was not well-received by the members of the Korean Literature Club, most of whom gave it middling marks.
There are no doubt many other contenders. As for now, I don't know what they might be. So please post what they may be in this thread, if you want; or drop in any other Korean literature-related comments 2026 International Booker Prize here.
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