Today, 10 March, the judges of the 2022 International Booker Prize reveal the 13 novels longlisted for the prestigious award which celebrates the finest translated fiction from around the world.
Complementing The Booker Prize for Fiction, the prize is awarded every year for a single book that is translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland. It aims to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works of imagination from all over the world, and to give greater recognition to the role of translators. Both novels and short-story collections are eligible. The contribution of both author and translator is given equal recognition, with the £50,000 prize split evenly between them. In addition, for the first time in 2022, the authors and translators who go on to be shortlisted will share £2,500 – an increase from £1,000 in previous years – bringing the total value of the prize to £65,000.
The longlist
This year, the judges considered 137 books.
The full 2022 International Booker longlist is:
- Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, translated from Korean by Anton Hur
- After The Sun by Jonas Eika, translated from Danish by Sherilyn Nicolette Hellberg
- A New Name: Septology VI-VII by Jon Fosse, translated from Norwegian by Damion Searls
- More Than I Love My Life by David Grossman, translated from Hebrew by Jessica Cohen
- The Book of Mother by Violaine Huisman, translated from French by Leslie Camhi
- Heaven by Mieko Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Samuel Bett and David Boyd
- Paradais by Fernanda Melchor, translated from Spanish – Mexican by Sophie Hughes
- Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated from Korean by Anton Hur
- Happy Stories, Mostly by Norman Erikson Pasaribu, translated from Indonesian by Tiffany Tsao
- Elena Knows by Claudia Piñeiro, translated from Spanish by Frances Riddle
- Phenotypes by Paulo Scott, translated from Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
- Tomb of Sand by Geetanjali Shree, translated from Hindi by Daisy Rockwell
- The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Jennifer Croft
The judges
The longlist was selected by the 2022 judging panel consisting of: translator, Frank Wynne (chair); author and academic Merve Emre; writer and lawyer Petina Gappah; writer, comedian and TV, radio and podcast presenter, Viv Groskop; and translator and author Jeremy Tiang. This is the first time a translator has chaired the panel.
Frank Wynne says:
‘Borges famous believed that paradise would be “a kind of library”, and spending the past year in the company of some of the world’s great writers and their equally gifted translators has been a kind of heaven. From the intimate to the epic, the numinous to the profane, the books make up a passionately-debated longlist trace a ring around the world. These thirteen titles from twelve countries and eleven languages explore the breadth and depth of human experience, and are a testament to the power of language and literature.’
The shortlist for the prize will be announced on 7 April 2022 at The London Book Fair, and the winner announced on 26 May 2022 at a ceremony at One Marylebone in London.
Get involved
Have you read any of the longlisted books? Share your thoughts with us on Twitter and Instagram using #FinestFiction and #2022InternationalBooker, or click on a title above to leave a review. Find out more about the titles and why they were selected for the list with the International Booker Prize Reading Guides.
For more information, visit the Booker Prize website.
