Booker prize goes cinematic

The International Booker Prize is turning its 2026 shortlist into a film campaign, with six short movies starring actors including Toby Jones, Indira Varma and Toheeb Jimoh. (thebookerprizes.com) The Booker Prize Foundation said the films will be released on Thursday, April 16, 2026, after a trailer was posted on its social channels on April 14. The cast also includes Kae Alexander, Jehnny Beth and Xelia Mendes-Jones. (thebookerprizes.com) The six films are tied to the International Booker Prize’s 10th year in its current format and will be screened again at a Southbank Centre anniversary event in London on May 8. The Booker Prize Foundation said Dua Lipa, 2021 winner David Diop and 2025 winning translator Deepa Bhasthi are due to appear at that event. (thebookerprizes.com) The prize is for fiction translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland, and its £50,000 award is split equally between author and translator. Each shortlisted book also gets £5,000, divided equally between the two. (thebookerprizes.com) This year’s shortlist was announced on March 31 from a field of 128 submitted books, cut first to a 13-book longlist on February 24. The winner will be announced on May 19 at Tate Modern in London. (thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com) The six shortlisted books are *The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran*, *She Who Remains*, *The Director*, *On Earth As It Is Beneath*, *The Witch* and *Taiwan Travelogue*. The judges said the list spans five original languages, eight nationalities and four continents. (thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com) Several of the shortlisted books already carry strong hooks for adaptation and promotion. *The Director*, by Daniel Kehlmann and translated by Ross Benjamin, follows filmmaker G.W. Pabst as Nazi rule closes in, while *Taiwan Travelogue*, by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, centers on a Japanese writer in 1930s Taiwan whose first novel has already been adapted into a popular film inside the story. (thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com) Other shortlisted titles stretch from family and revolution to prison horror and suburban magic. Shida Bazyar’s *The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran*, translated by Ruth Martin, tracks an Iranian family across decades, while Ana Paula Maia’s *On Earth As It Is Beneath*, translated by Padma Viswanathan, is set in a remote Brazilian penal colony where the warden hunts inmates on full-moon nights. (thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com) The shortlist also includes Rene Karabash’s *She Who Remains*, translated by Izidora Angel, about a sworn virgin in the Albanian Alps, and Marie NDiaye’s *The Witch*, translated by Jordan Stump, a 1996 French novel about a mother trying to pass witchcraft to twin daughters. The Booker Prize Foundation said *The Witch* is the one shortlisted book first published in its original language more than 30 years ago. (thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com; thebookerprizes.com) The films are directed by Holly Blakey, with original music by Gwilym Gold, and were shot at Southbank Centre locations including the Purcell Room and the National Poetry Library. The Booker Prize Foundation said the cast was styled in vintage and contemporary Vivienne Westwood for the series. (thebookerprizes.com) The foundation is leaning on a playbook it says already worked once: Deadline reported that the 2025 Booker Prize films, directed by Sasha Nathwani, were watched more than 100 million times. This year’s campaign arrives before the May 19 winner announcement, with the books now competing both on the page and on screen. (deadline.com; thebookerprizes.com)