Living Canon

International Booker Prize 2025: Complete list of winners

The International Booker Prize continues its vital mission of championing literature in translation, and the 2025 winner proves why this award matters more than ever. This year’s selection recognizes work that transcends borders and languages, bringing stories from around the world to English-speaking readers who might otherwise never encounter them. The International Booker Prize, often called the global counterpart to the Man Booker Prize for English-language fiction, has long served as a gateway to the world’s most compelling voices—authors writing in languages from Arabic to Mandarin to the countless others that deserve recognition on the international stage.

The 2025 International Booker Prize for Translated Fiction honors Banu Mushtaq’s Heart Lamp: Selected Stories, a collection that showcases the power of short fiction to capture the essence of human experience. Mushtaq’s work reflects the kind of literary excellence that makes the International Booker Prize such an important institution in global publishing. By elevating translated collections alongside novels, the award recognizes that great stories come in many forms, and that the work of translators—often invisible architects of cross-cultural understanding—deserves celebration alongside the original authors.

This recognition continues a tradition of the International Booker Prize bringing international literature to new audiences while affirming that the best stories know no linguistic boundaries. Whether you’re a devoted follower of the awards circuit or simply looking to expand your reading horizons, this year’s winner offers a compelling entry point into contemporary global literature.

Translated Fiction