2026 International Booker Prize Finalists OUT! Know About the Six Books That Transport Readers to Other Worlds

The 2026 International Booker Prize has finally announced the six finalists, featuring six remarkable authors, their themes, characters, settings, and origins. Supported by Bukhman Philanthropies, the honor was formerly called the Man Booker International Prize. The title honor is presented annually for a work of fiction that was originally written in a language other than English, then translated into English and published in the U.K. and/or Ireland. 

Each shortlisted title will win a prize of £5,000: £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator. The winner will be announced on May 19 at the Tate Modern in London. Take a closer look at the six remarkable shortlisted books and their authors. 

2026 International Booker Prize: Complete List of Finalists

Two German authors have been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize. Shida Bazyar’s ‘The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran’ was translated from German by Ruth Martin. ‘The Director’ by Daniel Kehlmann (translated by Ross Benjamin) marks his second time to be shortlisted. pic.twitter.com/gBgyIs9yiS — German Embassy London (@GermanEmbassy) April 1, 2026

Before you dive straight into the six finalists, we would like to give you a quick heads-up. The list comprises authors and translators representing eight countries, namely, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, the UK, and the United States, and four continents, including Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Interestingly, five of the six authors and four of the six translators are women.

Natasha Brown, Chair of this year’s judging panel, stated that the narratives capture moments from across the past century. The shortlisted books reverberate with history. Some tap into heartbreak, brutality, and isolation, but the lasting effect is energising. The finalists are as follows:

1. The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin

This is a multigenerational story narrated by four different family members. First, during the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the family sought a new home in West Germany, which takes readers back to Iran and the Iranian people’s struggle to come to a new political and social reality during the Green Revolution of 2009. In a nutshell, it is a polyphonic novel that explores themes of oppression, exile, resistance, and lives lived between cultures.

2. She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel

She Who Remains is a short and poetic book about identity, gender, love, and freedom. The novel follows the story of an independent-minded young woman named Bekja, living in Albania’s rural Accursed Mountains. She escapes an arranged marriage, reshapes her life, and decides to live as a man. That declaration sets off a chain reaction in the community, ultimately separating Bekja from the person she loves the most. 

3. The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin

The Director explores the tensions between artistic ambition and moral compromise. It is a tale of real-life Austrian film maker G.W. Pabst, who fled a prominent career in Nazi Germany to make a new life in Hollywood. Due to his ailing mother, however, he returns to his native country, where the regime begins pressuring him to make propaganda. 

4. On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan

On Earth As It Is Beneath is a 100-page horror novella set in a remote penal colony in which every full moon, the warden releases the inmates into the wilderness, only to hunt them down.

5. The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump

Surprisingly, this novel is the oldest of this year’s crop of shortlisted nominees. It was originally published in French in 1996. It chronicles around Lucie, a not terribly gifted witch, who passes on her familial powers to her twin daughters, Maud and Lise. She was stuck in an unhappy marriage in an ordinary French town. After passing her powers to her children, she finds their powers far exceed her own. 

6. Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

Taiwan Travelogue explores the theme of colonialism and queer love. It traces the journey of young Japanese novelist, Aoyama Chizuko, who travels for a year through Taiwan. He is a young writer of voracious appetites and has been invited to Taiwan by the Japanese government, which currently controls the island. Once arrived, she meets her Taiwanese interpreter, Chizuru, who enraptures Chizuko. In a nutshell, the 2024 National Book Award-winning book is about a Japanese novelist’s culinary journey through Taiwan, accompanied by a local interpreter who shares her love of food.

On May 19, the world will get to see which book is hailed as the winner. For your information, the judges for the 2026 International Booker prize are author Natasha Brown; writer, broadcaster, and professor Marcus du Sautoy; translator Sophie Hughes; writer, editor, and bookseller Troy Onyango, and novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy.