Marie NDiaye advances

Marie NDiaye’s *The Witch* is now one of six books on the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist. (thebookerprizes.com) The shortlist was announced on March 31, 2026, by the Booker Prize Foundation. NDiaye’s novel is translated from French by Jordan Stump and published in Britain by MacLehose Press. (thebookerprizes.com) The International Booker Prize covers fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland between May 1, 2025, and April 30, 2026. This year’s 13-book longlist was selected from 128 submissions, and the winner will be announced on May 19, 2026, at Tate Modern in London. (thebookerprizes.com) For NDiaye, the shortlist extends a run that began with the longlist announced on February 24, 2026. Brittle Paper noted in March that this was her second International Booker longlist appearance after *Ladivine* in 2016, also translated by Stump. (brittlepaper.com) The book itself is not new in French. *The Witch* was first published in 1996, and the Booker Prize Foundation said its shortlist recognition comes 30 years after that original publication. (thebookerprizes.com) The novel centers on Lucie, a suburban woman from a family of witches who tries to pass that inheritance to her twin daughters, only to find their powers exceed her own. The Booker Prize Foundation describes Lucie as “a mediocre witch, in a mediocre marriage,” and frames the story as domestic life pushed into the uncanny. (thebookerprizes.com) The 2026 judges are chaired by Natasha Brown and include Marcus du Sautoy, Sophie Hughes, Troy Onyango, and Nilanjana S. Roy. In the shortlist announcement, Brown said the six selected books “reverberate with history” and carry “hope, insight and burning humanity.” (thebookerprizes.com) The prize awards £50,000, split equally between the winning author and translator, and each shortlisted book receives £5,000, also divided equally. That structure keeps the translator on the front line of the award, which is the point of the International Booker in its current form. (thebookerprizes.com) NDiaye, born in France in 1967 to a Senegalese father and a French mother, has already won the Prix Femina and the Prix Goncourt. Brittle Paper reported that her 2009 Goncourt win for *Three Strong Women* made her the first Black woman to receive that prize. (brittlepaper.com) The shortlist puts *The Witch* into the final stretch of a prize that has become a major route for translated fiction into English-language readership. The next date is May 19, when NDiaye and Stump will learn whether the book moves one step further. (thebookerprizes.com)