The International Booker Prize longlist is filled with wonders this year, but these are our unmissable translated fiction recommendations.

By Olivia Chang

In the pages of these books, you’ll travel from Palestine to India, stand in the shoes of a scorned coastguard who won’t take accountability, and navigate the romance between two close friends with their own anguished issues. Read on to learn more about the best novels in translation from our publishers on the International Booker Prize longlist of 2025.

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1.  The Book of Disappearance by Ibtisam Azem (Translated by Sinan Antoon) – published by And Other Stories

‘An extraordinary novel, full of heartache, longing and love for Palestine’ – Richard Ford

Palestinian novelist Ibtisam Azem’s second novel tells the story of neighbours Alaa, who is haunted by the generational trauma caused by the Nakba, and Ariel. Ariel is a liberal Zionist, sitting on the fence with the occupation. When Ariel wakes one morning to find that all Palestinians have disappeared, he searches for clues to discover where they’ve gone. A wonderfully deft, sensitive and subtle novel that poses the question ‘is there absolute justice in the world?’           

2.  Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix (Translated by Helen Stevenson) – published by HopeRoad Publishing

‘When the sea claims a migrant boat, it claims us all.’ – Jeremy Harding

When a coastguard is unwilling to help an inflatable dinghy of 27 people in the English/French channel, she is accused of failing in her duty. ‘There is no shipwreck without spectators… but not one person looks like getting up to step into the water.’ In this longlisted novel for the 2023 Prix Goncourt, Delecroix examines the morality of a society which turned a blind eye to those twenty-seven people in the 2021 major Channel disaster.

3.  A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre (Translated by Mark Hutchinson) – published by Lolli Editions

‘Like watching a mirage flicker in and out of focus.’ – Merve Emre

Anne Serre’s most moving novel yet, A Leopard-Skin Hat, follows the Narrator and his close childhood friend, who suffers from profound psychological disorders. Told through a series of short vignettes depicting the back and forth between the hope and despair involved in a relationship between a strong-willed and tormented young woman and the Narrator’s loving and anguished attachment to her. Anne Serre is the author of fifteen books and the recipient of a 2008 Cino del Duca Foundation award, and this novel is written in her signature style, celebrating a tragically foreshortened life and a valedictory farewell. 

4.  Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq (Translated by Deepa Bhasthi) – published by And Other Stories

‘Captures the original’s nuances of voice, context and experience, bringing this important work into English for new readers in India and internationally.’ – PEN Presents Selection Panel

A tender and rare collection of short stories, capturing the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in Southern India. With dry and gentle humour, Mushtaq portrays family and community tensions which has earned her India’s most prestigious literary awards. Writer, activist and lawyer in the state of Karnataka, Mushtaq is the author of six short story collections, a novel, an essay collection and a poetry collection.

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These four books invite you to live with their narrators, but also with the lives of those around them. Whether it’s the alternating storyline of Alaa and Ariel, the twelve different narrators of ‘Heart Lamp’, or the unreliable narration of a coastguard – these translated fiction books ensure you can travel across the world without leaving the comfort of your armchair. The only place you need to travel to is bookshop.org.