Actors read Booker shorts

The Booker Prize Foundation has enlisted actors including Toby Jones, Indira Varma and Toheeb Jimoh to front six short films based on the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist. (thebookerprizes.com) The films are due out on Thursday, April 16, and each one features an actor performing an extract from one shortlisted book. Kae Alexander, Jehnny Beth and Xelia Mendes-Jones round out the cast. (thebookerprizes.com) The pairings are specific: Jones reads Daniel Kehlmann’s *The Director*, Varma reads Marie NDiaye’s *The Witch*, Jimoh reads Shida Bazyar’s *The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran*, Beth reads Rene Karabash’s *She Who Remains*, Alexander reads Yáng Shuāng-zǐ’s *Taiwan Travelogue*, and Mendes-Jones reads Ana Paula Maia’s *On Earth As It Is Beneath*. (deadline.com) The 2026 shortlist was announced on March 31 and marks the prize’s 10th year in its current form. The winning book will be named on May 19 at Tate Modern in London, with the £50,000 award split equally between author and translator. (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 six shortlisted books were selected from a longlist of 13 and a total of 128 submissions. (thebookerprizes.com) The films are part of a Booker strategy that treats the shortlist like screen programming as well as publishing news. Booker has been commissioning short films for its Booker Prize and International Booker Prize lists since 2022. (deadline.com) That push has drawn a measurable audience. Booker said the 2025 Booker Prize films were watched more than 100 million times, and its chief executive Gaby Wood said in 2025 that the foundation saw the clips as “film trailers for books.” (deadline.com) (standard.co.uk) This year’s films were directed by Holly Blakey, with original music by Gwilym Gold, and shot across the Southbank Centre site in London, including the Purcell Room and the National Poetry Library. The cast was also styled in vintage and contemporary Vivienne Westwood pieces. (thebookerprizes.com) The shorts will be screened again at the Southbank Centre on May 8 during a 10th-anniversary International Booker event featuring Dua Lipa, 2021 winner David Diop and 2025 winning translator Deepa Bhasthi. The reading films open first; the prize itself is decided five days later. (thebookerprizes.com)