Dua Lipa backs the Booker

Dua Lipa is publicly backing the International Booker Prize again as the 2026 award moves from shortlist season toward its May 19 winner announcement in London. (thebookerprizes.com) The Booker Prize Foundation announced the 2026 longlist on February 24 and the six-book shortlist on March 31. The winning book will be named at Tate Modern on Tuesday, May 19, with the £50,000 prize split equally between the winning author and translator. (thebookerprizes.com 1) (thebookerprizes.com 2) This year’s shortlist includes *The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran*, *She Who Remains*, *The Director*, *On Earth As It Is Beneath*, *The Witch* and *Taiwan Travelogue*. The Booker Prize Foundation said the six books were chosen from 128 submissions published in the United Kingdom or Ireland between May 1, 2025 and April 30, 2026. (thebookerprizes.com) The International Booker Prize is the branch of the Booker awards for fiction translated into English, and it gives the translator the same billing and prize money as the author. Each shortlisted book also receives £5,000, split into £2,500 for the author and £2,500 for the translator. (thebookerprizes.com) That structure fits the case Lipa has been making around translated writing. In a 2024 interview for Service95, she said she did not want to read “everything from a Western lens” and said she had already worked with the Booker Prize Foundation “for a while now.” (service95.com) Her involvement with the Booker world goes back several years. She delivered a keynote speech at the 2022 Booker Prize ceremony, then joined the International Booker Prize’s 2024 campaign in a series of short films reading from shortlisted books. (thebookerprizes.com 1) (thebookerprizes.com 2) Service95 gives Lipa a direct channel to push books to a large general audience. The platform’s book club is still active in April 2026, with Jez Butterworth’s *Jerusalem* listed as her monthly read and an archive of picks running back to June 2023. (service95.com) (yahoo.com) The Booker organization has been leaning harder into that crossover between literature and celebrity promotion. It said its shortlist films since 2022 have been viewed more than 200 million times, and the 2024 films alone drew more than 80 million views on Booker social channels. (thebookerprizes.com 1) (thebookerprizes.com 2) For the 2026 prize itself, the judges are chaired by novelist Natasha Brown, alongside Marcus du Sautoy, Sophie Hughes, Troy Onyango and Nilanjana S. Roy. The Booker Prize Foundation said five of the six shortlisted authors and four of the six translators are women. (thebookerprizes.com) So Lipa’s latest push lands at a precise moment: the shortlist is out, the winner date is set for May 19, and the prize is marking 10 years in its current form. The campaign is still centered on the same pitch she has made before — that translation widens what, and who, readers get to hear. (thebookerprizes.com) (service95.com)