International Booker nod

Marie NDiaye’s *The Witch*, translated from French by Jordan Stump, is one of six books shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize. (thebookerprizes.com) The shortlist was announced on March 31, 2026, by a judging panel chaired by Natasha Brown. The winner is due to be named on May 19 at Tate Modern in London. (thebookerprizes.com) The prize honors a single work of 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 £50,000 prize is split equally between author and translator. (thebookerprizes.com) For NDiaye and Stump, the nomination puts a 1996 French novel into the center of a 2026 prize cycle. The Booker Foundation notes a 30-year gap between the book’s original publication and its current recognition in English. (thebookerprizes.com) The English-language edition is short: 144 pages in the U.S. paperback from Penguin Random House, published on April 7, 2026, at a list price of $18. The Booker site lists the shortlisted U.K. edition from MacLehose Press as published on April 14, 2026. (penguinrandomhouse.com) (thebookerprizes.com) The novel follows Lucie, a suburban mother whose weak magical gift sets her apart from her twin daughters, Maud and Lise, whose powers quickly outstrip her own. The Booker Foundation describes the book as a story about family breakdown, motherhood, and power passed from mother to daughter. (thebookerprizes.com) NDiaye told the Booker site that she wanted to write “a contemporary witch” who is ashamed of her gift and struggles to pass it on. She said she wrote the book over about two years while living in Normandy with three young children. (thebookerprizes.com) The shortlist also renews attention on the translator as a co-equal prize recipient. NDiaye said the award gives author and translator “the same degree of importance,” and Stump’s earlier translation of her novel *Ladivine* was longlisted for the International Booker in 2016. (thebookerprizes.com 1) (thebookerprizes.com 2) Critical discussion has already moved past the shortlist announcement and into close readings of the book itself. A Bookmunch review published April 18 called the novel “a curious magical beastie” and gave a mixed assessment, praising Stump’s translation while arguing the book “runs out of steam.” (bookmunch.wordpress.com) That split screen — prize recognition on one side, book-by-book scrutiny on the other — is now shaping the final stretch before May 19. *The Witch* arrived late in English, but it is now being judged in real time as both a revived work from 1996 and a live contender for one of translation’s biggest prizes. (thebookerprizes.com) (bookmunch.wordpress.com)