Winner of the 2023 Booker Prize:

Prophet Song by Paul Lynch 

Taking place in Dublin, caught between nightmares too good to be true, and a society on the brink of destruction, Ellish— scientist and mother of four, takes part in the tumultuous pursuit to do whatever it takes to save her family. 

“Prophet Song captures the social and political anxieties of our current moment. Readers will find it soul-shattering and true, and will not soon forget its warnings”. – The Booker Prize judges on Prophet Song 

2023 Booker Prize Shortlist: 

The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

“Paul Murray’s saga, The Bee Sting, set in the Irish Midlands, brilliantly explores how our secrets and self-deceptions ultimately catch up with us. This family drama, told from multiple perspectives, is at once hilarious and heartbreaking, personal and epic. It’s an addictive read”. -The Booker Prize 2023 judges

If I survive you by Jonathan Escoffery 

“An astonishingly assured debut novel, lauded by the panel for its clarity, variety and fizzing prose. As the stories move back and forth through geography and time, we are confronted by the immigrants’ eternal questions: who am I now and where do I belong?”.- The Booker Prize 2023 judges

Western Lane by Chetna Maroo

“Skillfully deploying the sport of squash as both context and metaphor, Western Lane is a deeply evocative debut about a family grappling with grief, conveyed through crystalline language which reverberates like the sound “of a ball hit clean and hard…with a close echo”.-The Booker Prize 2023 judges

This Other Eden by Paul Harding 

“Based on a relatively unknown true story, Paul Harding’s heartbreakingly beautiful novel transports us to a unique island community scrabbling a living. The panel were moved by the delicate symphony of language, land and narrative that Harding brings to bear on the story of the islanders”. -The Booker Prize 2023 judges

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein 

“Study for Obedience is an absurdist, darkly funny novel about the rise of xenophobia, as seen through the eyes of a stranger in an unnamed town – or is it? Bernstein’s urgent, crystalline prose upsets all our expectations, and what transpires is a meditation on survival itself”. -The Booker Prize 2023 judges

Background history of the International Booker Prize: The international booker prize decides yearly on the best single work of fiction from across the globe that’s been translated to English. This prize honors the significant work of translators, equally splitting the $50,000 prize money between author and translator. Did you know that in the UK book buyers under the age of 35 make-up almost half (48.2%) of all purchases of translated fiction? UK sales of translated literature accounted for 3.3% of overall fiction sales in contrast with the U.S. around 1%.  Here’s the stats on who really reads translated literature and its impacts, to learn more.  

Winner of the International Booker Prize 2023:

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospondinov

1960s furniture and 1940’s outfits in a “clinic for the past”, created by an enigmatic therapist in hopes to offer a new solution to those suffering from Alzheimer’s. Where each floor reproduces a decade, acting as a transportation portal to the past familiar, safer moments in one’s life. Whereas it’s not long until “healthy” people start to take refuge in hopes to escape the horrors of real life. Leading to conundrums, mystery, and the question of how we conceptualize time, with countries grasping to emulate the ill-illusioned ideas of the past– to ultimately construct each nation’s future. 

“In scenes that are burlesque as well as heartbreaking, he questions the way in which our memory is the cement of our identity and our intimate narrative. But it is also a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented, and nostalgia is a poison. It offers us a perspective on the destiny of countries like Bulgaria, which have found themselves at the heart of the ideological conflict between the West and the communist world”.- Leïla Slimani, apart of the Chair of Judges for the International Booker Prize 2023

2023 International Booker Prize Shortlist:

Still Born by Guadalupe Nettel and translated by Rosalind Harvey

“Two best friends share an aversion to “the human shackles” of motherhood, only to discover that life has other plans. With a twisty, enveloping plot, the novel poses some of the knottiest questions about freedom, disability, and dependence – all in language so blunt it burns”.- The International Booker Prize 2023 panel of judges on ‘Still Born’

Whale by Cheon Myeong-kwan and translated by Chi-Young Kim

“A carnivalesque fairy tale that celebrates independence and enterprise, a picaresque quest through Korea’s landscapes and history, Whale is a riot of a book. Cheon Myeong-Kwan’s vivid characters are foolish but wise, awful but endearing, and always irrepressible. This is a hymn to restlessness and self-transformation”.- The International Booker Prize 2023 panel of judges

Standing Heavy by GauZ’ and translated by Frank Wynne 

“A sharp and satirical take on the legacies of French colonial history and life in Paris today. Told in a fast-paced, and fluently translated, style of shifting perspectives, Standing Heavy carries us through the decades”. -The International Booker Prize 2023 panel of judges

The Gospel According to the New World by Maryse Conde and translated by Richard Philcox

“The book borrows from the tradition of magical realism and draws us into a world full of color and life. This is a book that succeeds in mixing humor with poetry, and depth with lightness”.- The International Booker Prize 2023 panel of judges

Boulder by Eva Baltasar and translated by Julia Sanches 

“Eva Baltasar demonstrates her pre-eminence as a chronicler of queer voices navigating a hostile world – in prose as brittle and beautiful as an ancient saga”. - The International Booker Prize 2023 panel of judges