Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Six remarkable works of translated fiction have been shortlisted for the 2025 International Booker Prize, announced earlier this month, notably all published by independent presses.
Each offering unique perspectives on contemporary human experiences, the books shed a light on French, Danish, Japanese, Italian and Kannada literature.
“This shortlist is the result of a life-enhancing conversation between myself and my fellow judges. Reading 154 books in six months made us feel like high-speed Question Machines hurtling through space,” the 2025 jury’s chair Max Porter said.
“Our selected six awakened an appetite in us to question the world around us: How am I seeing or being seen? How are we translating each other, all the time? How are we trapped in our bodies, in our circumstances, in time, and what are our options for freedom? Who has a voice? In discussing these books we have been considering again and again what it means to be a human being now.”
The winner of the £50,000 prize, to be split equally between the author and translator, will be announced on May 20 at London’s Tate Modern.
Here are the shortlisted titles:
