2024 International Booker Prize shortlist announced

The shortlist for the prestigious International Booker Prize was announced on Tuesday.

This esteemed prize is awarded annually to the most exceptional work of fiction globally, with the book having been translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. 

The six books featured on this year’s list were penned by authors from Argentina, Germany, Sweden, Korea, the Netherlands and Brazil and translated from Dutch, German, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish and Swedish.

Acclaimed Canadian writer and broadcaster of the literary show Writers and Company, Eleanor Wachtel, chaired the 2024 judging panel, and was joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natalie Diaz, Booker Prize shortlisted author Romesh Gunesekera, writer, editor and translator Aaron Robertson and (our very own!) renowned visual artist William Kentridge. 

The 2024 shortlisted titles are:

• Not a River by Selva Almada (translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott)

• Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck (translated from German by Michael Hoffman) 
• The Details by Ia Genberg (translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson)
• What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma (translated from Dutch by Sarah Timmer Harvey)
• Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong (translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae) 
• Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior (translated from Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz)

The winning title will be announced in a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern on May 21. The prize money of £50,000 is divided equally between author and translator, with each master of their craft receiving £25,000.