Tagged: translation

How to read the 2026 International Booker longlist in Canada

By the time I get this posted, this may as well be titled “How to read the 2026 International Booker *short*list. It really snuck up on me this year! I’ll blame my inattention on the fact that I’m in the middle of a long, meandering John Irving novel (that doesn’t narrow it down, does it… it’s Last Night in Twisted River) and that I’m on a book buying ban. I just booked a vacation to Nova Scotia for the family, and I bet I could have travelled to any of the countries represented in this longlist for the cost of travelling across my own. So, no new books for me!

While not as out-of-left-field as last year’s list, 2026 has a few surprises. There’s a book that came out in its original language in 1989, making it the same age as the youngest author on the list. There are no huge names (Daniel Kehlmann and Mathias Énard being perhaps the biggest), but I’m not sure if anyone got snubbed – other than Solvej Balle for volume II of her series that was on the list last year.

Find everything you need to know about obtaining these books in Canada in the updated “How to read the IBP in Canada” spreadsheet, or if you’re in a hurry, you can refer to the plain-text longlist below.

The longlist is fairly accessible in Canada. Today, all the books are available from Blackwell’s for the bargain price of $391.54 CAD. (About $60 more than last year’s longlist. Inflation: not just at the grocery store.) If you prefer to spend your money locally, most of them are available now at Canadian retailers too, with the exception of The Witch (out in April), The Duke (doesn’t seem to have a North American publisher) and Small Comfort (not out here till September).

My track record for timely IBP reviews isn’t great, but if you’re patient, I’ll get to a few of these eventually. I just got Taiwan Travelogue from the library, thankfully it’s on the shortlist as well.

Here are a few IBP lovers to read and watch in the meantime:

And here’s the longlist:

  • The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from the German by Ruth Martin
  • We Are Green and Trembling by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated from the Spanish by Robin Myers
  • The Remembered Soldier by Anjet Daanje, translated from the Dutch by David McKay
  • The Deserters by Mathias Énard, translated from the French by Charlotte Mandell
  • Small Comfort by Ia Genberg, translated from the Swedish by Kira Josefsson
  • She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel
  • The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from the German by Ross Benjamin
  • On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from the Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan
  • The Duke by Matteo Melchiorre, translated from the Italian by Antonella Lettieri
  • The Witch by Marie NDiaye, translated from the French by Jordan Stump
  • Women Without Men by Shahrnush Parsipur, translated from the Persian by Faridoun Farrokh
  • The Wax Child by Olga Ravn, translated from the Danish by Martin Aitken
  • Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ, translated from the Mandarin Chinese by Lin King

How to read the 2025 International Booker longlist in Canada

Like last year, the 2025 International Booker Prize longlist is out of left field. Former winners, who I thought were a lock, were shut out (Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk, László Krasznahorkai) and some of these translations were published in North America before the UK, which is unusual. But the most surprising thing about this longlist is that every author is an IBP first-timer. Past longlisters like Yoko Ogawa were shut out too. 

I have to think this was on purpose, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. Does Han Kang need this, months after winning the Nobel? Surely not. Is each of these 13 books better than her latest, We Do Not Part, which I read because I was so certain it would be longlisted? Highly unlikely.  

2025’s longlist is diverse, representing ten original languages and eleven nationalities. There are a couple of short story collections, several novellas (the shortest of which is practically a short story itself at 112 pages,) and one near-700 page chunkster. The list is skewed towards women (9 of 13) and boomers (6 of 13), and trends a bit older in general. There is no Gen Z representation at all, and the millennials are of the elder variety.

Find these stats and everything you need to know about obtaining these books in Canada in the updated “How to read the IBP in Canada” spreadsheet, or if you’re in a hurry, you can refer to the plain-text longlist below.

The longlist is fairly accessible in Canada. By the end of March, all the books will be available from Blackwell’s for the bargain price of $337.23 CAD. If you prefer to spend your money locally (elbows up and all that) most of them will be available through Canadian retailers too, with the exception of Small Boat and There’s A Monster Behind the Door. I’m just disappointed that my library system has none of these in ebook format. If Kobo thinks I’m going to spend $25.99 on a 192-page ebook (Eurotrash), they’ve got another thing coming. 

I don’t quite know what to make of the longlist, but I’ve already read one (On the Calculation of Volume I, the first in a septology, but not the first partial septology to be longlisted!) and have another seven on the way, either from Blackwells, Magpie Books, or the library. In the meantime, the IBP Shadow Panel has created a Substack to round up their reviews. They are without their usual leader, Tony from Tony’s Reading List – he’s still blogging though, so if you want to see what’s going on in translated lit outside of this list, he’s your guy.

If you want to know my thoughts, well, let’s see if I can crank out a few reviews. First challenge: say something about On the Calculation of Volume, a story about a woman who wakes up to the same day over and over again, without mentioning Groundhog Day. 

  • The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from the Arabic by Sinan Antoon
  • On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from the Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
  • There’s a Monster Behind the Door by Gaëlle Bélem, translated from the French by Karen Fleetwood and Laëtitia Saint-Loubert
  • Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated from the Romanian by Sean Cotter
  • Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from the Spanish by Heather Cleary and Julia Sanches
  • Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from the French by Helen Stevenson
  • Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from the Japanese by Polly Barton
  • Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Under the Eye of the Big Bird, translated from the Japanese by Asa Yoneda
  • Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from the German by Daniel Bowles
  • Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from the Italian by Sophie Hughes
  • Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from the Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
  • On a Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from the Dutch by Lucy Scott
  • A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from the French by Mark Hutchinson