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 novella the judges praised for its stark, haunting portrait of life inside a remote Brazilian penal colony where the lines between justice and cruelty break down.
The panel commended Maia’s ability to create “an entire moral universe” from minimal elements — a distant prison, a few men and the rituals that shape their lives — describing the book as a dark fable about power in which brutality is ordinary and civilisation feels precariously thin.
The International Booker awards GBP 50,000 to the winning author and translator, shared equally; 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 also an established playwright and novelist, with books published in eight countries. This year’s shortlist is notable for its gender balance: five of the six authors and four of the six translators are women. The authors and translators on the list represent eight countries: Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.
Judging-panel chair Natasha Brown noted that the shortlisted books span much of the past century and leave a resonant impression: while they convey heartbreak, brutality and isolation, their overall impact is energising.
The full 2026 shortlist:
– 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
– On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia, translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan
The winner will be announced on May 19 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London. The International Booker Prize is awarded annually to a single work of fiction originally written in a language other than English and published in English translation in the UK and/or Ireland.
Organisers said last year’s winner, Heart Lamp — the first short-story collection and the first work translated from Kannada to win the prize — quickly sold out in the UK, prompting publisher And Other Stories to reprint 40,000 copies.
(PTI, New Delhi)
