Padma Viswanathan, a Canadian-American writer of Indian origin, has been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize as the English translator of a Portuguese-language novella.
Viswanathan translated On Earth As It Is Beneath by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia, a work judges described as “a brutal, haunting and hypnotic novella set in a remote Brazilian penal colony, where the boundaries between justice and cruelty collapse.” The judging panel said Maia “builds an entire moral universe out of very little: a remote prison, a handful of men, and the rituals of punishment that govern their lives,” and called the novel “almost like a dark fable about power, where brutality is ordinary and civilisation feels frighteningly thin.”
The annual prize is worth GBP 50,000, to be divided equally between author and translator; each shortlisted title receives GBP 5,000, also split 50-50. Last year’s prize went to Kannada writer-activist Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi for the short story collection Heart Lamp.
Viswanathan, 58, is professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas–Fayetteville, and is an accomplished playwright and novelist whose books have been published in eight countries. The shortlist this year is dominated by women: five of the six authors and four of the six translators are female. Together, the authors and translators represent eight countries — Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.
Chair of the judging panel Natasha Brown said: “With narratives that capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history. While there’s heartbreak, brutality and isolation among these stories, their lasting effect is energising.”
The other shortlisted books are:
– The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran by Shida Bazyar, translated from German by Ruth Martin
– She Who Remains by Rene Karabash, translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel
– The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from German by Ross Benjamin
– Taiwan Travelogue by Yang Shuang-zi, translated from Taiwanese by Lin King
– The Witch by Marie Ndiaye, translated from French by Jordan Stump
The winner will be announced on May 19 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London. The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single work of fiction, written in another language, translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.
According to the organisers, last year’s winner Heart Lamp — the first collection of short stories and the first work translated from Kannada to win the prize — rapidly sold out in the UK, prompting publisher And Other Stories to immediately reprint 40,000 copies.
PTI
New Delhi, Updated At : 02:36 PM Apr 02, 2026 IST
Padma Viswanathan. Image credit/padmaviswanathan.com
