April 8, 2025, 10:16am
This morning, five novels and one short story collection have been recognized on the International Booker Prize shortlist. This annually given award recognizes literature in translation.
Some takeaways—slim novels took the cake this year, with the longest book ringing at at a little over 250 pages. Authors and translators come from a wide diaspora, including Denmark, England, France, Japan, Italy, India and Scotland. And for the first time in the prize’s history, all the recognized books were published by independent presses.
Theme-wise, the international community seems most concerned with…well, survival.
As the Booker page notes, “These are books about survival and self-preservation—about our indomitable instinct to keep going in the face of catastrophe, oppression, extinction or hopelessness. In a world that can often seem full of despair, this is a shortlist that celebrates the human spirit—our capacity to endure and our impulse to live a better life.”
Here are the finalists.
A Leopard-Skin Hat, by Anne Serre, translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson
This novel, told in memory fragments, chronicles a fraught friendship.
Heart Lamp, by Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
In these twelve stories published between 1980 and 2023, Mushtaq examines the everyday lives of Muslim girls and women in Southern India.
Perfection, by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes
In this “taut, spare, sociological” novel, two Millennial ex-pats living in Berlin consider how to live an authentic life.
Under the Eye of the Big Bird, by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda
This speculative novel set in a “distant future” encounters humans on the edge of of extinction.
Small Boat, by Vincent Delecroix, translated from the French by Helen Stevenson
When a boat carrying migrants is refused aid, bureaucrats pass blame for the tragedy that ensues. This gut-punch of a morality tale looks at a global crisis.
On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
This first installment of an epic septology follows a woman stuck in a time loop. Every day she wakes on November 18th.
Congratulations to the finalists! You can read excerpts from the shortlist titles here.