Daniel Kehlmann, Marie NDiaye and Yáng Shuāng-zǐ are among the six authors shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker prize, as the award marks its 10th anniversary.
The annual prize celebrates the best works of fiction translated into English, and awards £50,000 to one author-translator pair, to be split equally.
Authors Rene Karabash, Shida Bazyar and Ana Paula Maia are also shortlisted for the prize. The winning book will be announced on 19 May.
German author Daniel Kehlmann earns his second shortlisting for The Director, translated by Ross Benjamin, a novel inspired by the life of film-maker GW Pabst and his entanglement with Nazi Germany.
French writer Marie NDiaye, meanwhile, reaches the shortlist for the first time with The Witch, translated by Jordan Stump, a darkly comic novel originally published in French in 1996. NDiaye was previously longlisted for the prize in 2016, and was shortlisted in the prize’s earlier version in 2013, when it recognised writers for their entire body of work.
Taiwanese author Yáng Shuāng-zǐ is shortlisted for Taiwan Travelogue, translated by Lin King, which follows a Japanese woman’s journey through 1930s Taiwan under colonial rule. The novel won Taiwan’s highest literary honour, the Golden Tripod award, when originally published in Mandarin Chinese in 2020.
The six shortlisted books “capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history”, according to judging chair and author Natasha Brown. “Rereading each book, we found hope, insight and burning humanity – along with unforgettable characters to whom I’m sure readers will return again and again.”
Two debuts feature on the shortlist: The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by German author Shida Bazyar, translated by Ruth Martin, which traces an Iranian family’s journey through revolution and exile, and She Who Remains by Bulgarian writer Rene Karabash, translated by Izidora Angel, a coming-of-age story set in a patriarchal Albanian community.
Also on the list is On Earth As It Is Beneath by Brazilian writer Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan, a novella set in a brutal former slave plantation turned penal colony.
Five of the six authors are women, as are four of the six translators, and the books were originally written in five different languages, with authors and translators together representing eight nationalities.
The judging panel selected the shortlist from a longlist of 13 titles, themselves chosen from 128 submissions. Each shortlisted title receives £5,000. The rest of the longlist was made up of We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Robin Myers; The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated by David McKay; The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell; Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, translated by Kira Josefsson; The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated by Antonella Lettieri; Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated by Faridoun Farrokh; and The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken.
