Introducing the shortlist for the International Booker Prize 2025
The shortlist for this year’s International Booker Prize, which celebrates the best works of long-form fiction or collections of short stories translated into English, is announced today.
Comprised of five novels and one collection of short stories, the six ‘mind-expanding books’ – which Chair of the 2025 judges Max Porter described as a ‘vehicle for pressing and surprising conversations about humanity’ – are as follows:
- On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
- Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson
- Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda
- Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes
- Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
- A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson
The shortlisted books feature stories that capture the indomitability of the human spirit, from AI ‘mothers’ parenting manufactured children in a futuristic world to the resilience of girls and women in patriarchal communities in southern India; from a protagonist forced to relive the same day over and over to the distress calls of migrants on a small boat in the Channel; from the agony and joy of lifelong friendship in the shadow of mental illness to a couple’s search for meaningful connections in their digitally curated lives.