Short novels dominate International Booker Prize nominees
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The International Booker Prize 2025 longlist is dominated by short novels, with only one book being longer than 300 pages.
PHOTO: YUKI SUGIURA FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE FOUNDATION
Alex Marshall
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LONDON – The majority of the books nominated for this year’s International Booker Prize, the prestigious award for fiction translated into English, are under 200 pages long.
Only one is more than 300 pages: Mircea Cartarescu’s 627-page Solenoid, translated by Sean Cotter. It is also one of the most high-profile novels on the list.
Many literary critics have long touted Cartarescu as a potential Nobel Prize laureate, and the Romanian author’s nominated tome concerns a schoolteacher reflecting on his life, family and disturbing dreams.
The other titles, announced by the prize organisers in London on Feb 25, include Saou Ichikawa’s 100-page Hunchback, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton, about the sexual desires of a disabled care home resident; and Solvej Balle’s 169-page On The Calculation Of Volume I, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, in which an antiquarian book dealer repeatedly relives the same day.
Mr Max Porter, the chair of this edition’s judging panel, said in an interview that the selection of so many short books did not reflect a “much-prophesied loss of attention span” among readers. The 13 titles were simply the best the panel had read, he added.
Some book award judges gravitate towards long novels, he added, thinking that writing longer is harder – but finessing a short novel is an equal challenge. “Some of these books don’t have a wasted word,” he said.
Established in 2005, the International Booker Prize was originally awarded to authors for their entire body of work. Since 2016, it has been given to a single book translated into English and published in Britain or Ireland during the previous 12 months.
The 2024 prize went to German writer Jenny Erpenbeck’s Kairos, translated by Michael Hofmann. Previous winners have included South Korean novelist and Nobel Prize in Literature winner Han Kang’s The Vegetarian, and Polish author Olga Tokarczuk’s Flights.
The award comes with prize money of £50,000 (S$84,600), which the winning author and translator share equally.
The other nominees for the 2025 award include Ibtisam Azem’s The Book Of Disappearance, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon, which imagines a day in Tel Aviv when Israelis awake to find all their Palestinian neighbours have vanished; and Astrid Roemer’s On A Woman’s Madness, about a woman who abandons an abusive marriage and has a series of affairs, including one with a woman. Originally published in the Netherlands in 1982, On A Woman’s Madness was a finalist for the 2023 National Book Awards. It was translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott.
The judges will cut the list down to six nominees, scheduled to be announced on April 8. The winner will be revealed during a ceremony at Tate Modern in London on May 20. NYTIMES
The full list of nominees
The Book Of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem, translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon
On The Calculation Of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland
There’s A Monster Behind The Door, by Gaelle Belem, translated from French by Karen Fleetwood and Laetitia Saint-Loubert
Solenoid by Mircea Cartarescu, translated from Romanian by Sean Cotter
Reservoir Bitches by Dahlia de la Cerda, translated from Spanish by Julia Sanches and Heather Cleary
Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix, translated from French by Helen Stevenson
Hunchback by Saou Ichikawa, translated from Japanese by Polly Barton
Under The Eye Of The Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated from Japanese by Asa Yoneda
Eurotrash by Christian Kracht, translated from German by Daniel Bowles
Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated from Italian by Sophie Hughes
Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi
On A Woman’s Madness by Astrid Roemer, translated from Dutch by Lucy Scott
A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated from French by Mark Hutchinson
Correction note: In an earlier version of the story, the picture caption said only one nominated novel is longer than 300 words. This is incorrect. Only one nominated novel is longer than 300 pages. We are sorry for the error.
