Written by Lauren

Always looking for good book recs, we at ABC love spring’s literary award season. Last week, the International Booker Prize 2024 shortlist was announced in recognition of “the best works of literature originally written in languages other than English which have been translated and published in the UK or Ireland.”

The six books that make up the shortlist are from six different countries, including the Netherlands, and according to judges, “interweave the intimate and political in radically original ways.”

This year’s winner, who will split the £50,000 (€58,370) prize money with their translator (don’t you just love an award that recognizes the indispensability of translators?), will be announced at London’s Tate Modern May 21. Read on for the list. And stay tuned for the Pulitzers, coming in early May!

Not a River by Selva Almada, translated from Spanish by Annie McDermott
Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck, translated from German by Michael Hofmann
The Details by Ia Genberg, translated from Swedish by Kira Josefsson
Mater 2-10 by Hwang Sok-yong, translated from Korean by Sora Kim-Russell and Youngjae Josephine Bae
What I’d Rather Not Think About by Jente Posthuma, translated from Dutch by Sarah Timmer Harvey
Crooked Plow by Itamar Vieira Junior, translated from Portuguese by Johnny Lorenz