French-Moroccan novelist Slimani to chair 2023 International Booker Prize

French-Moroccan novelist Leïla Slimani will chair next year’s panel of International Booker Prize judges. 

She will be joined by Uilleam Blacker, one of Britain’s leading literary translators from Ukrainian, Tan Twan Eng, the Booker-shortlisted Malaysian novelist, Parul Sehgal, staff writer and critic at the New Yorker; and Frederick Studemann, literary editor of the Financial Times.   

The annual £50,000 prize, split equally between author and translator, is awarded to the best work of translated fiction, selected from entries published in the UK and Ireland between 1st May 2022 and 30th April 2023. There will be a prize of £5,000 for each of the shortlisted titles. 

Slimani said: “As a child, I lived in books. Through the magic of fiction, I was a Russian princess, a gold digger, a little orphan from the suburbs of London, an alchemist from the Colombian mountains. This is what novelists teach us and what translators offer us: in literature there are no borders, no illegals, no outcasts. Fiction is my home and I am more than happy to be able to live there for several months, surrounded by friends and colleagues, to celebrate our passion for words and stories. It is a great honour and responsibility to present this prestigious award to a novelist and to his or her translator whose talents have enabled them to be read by English-speaking readers.” 

Fiammetta Rocco, administrator of the International Booker Prize, added: “Led by Leïla Slimani, the five judges of the International Booker Prize 2023 bring a wealth of talent and global experience as writers, critics, translators – and most of all as readers. At the end of the prize cycle, in May 2023, their reading and discussions will give them an unparalleled view of the new fiction from around the world, written in other languages that has been translated into English and published in UK and Ireland. Their recommendations should leap to the top of your must-read list.” 

The International Booker Prize longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced in March 2023 and the shortlist of six books in April. The winning title will be announced at a ceremony in May. 

The 2022 winner, Tomb of Sand, written by Geetanjali Shree and translated by Daisy Rockwell, was met with both public and critical acclaim. The novel made history as the first book originally written in any Indian language to win the prize. The book’s British publisher, Tilted Axis, ordered a 15,000 reprint the day after the announcement that it had won the International Booker Prize and sales in the UK increased in volume by 877% in the week after the announcement.

Before the win, Tomb of Sand did not have a US publisher, and had not been reviewed by any UK newspapers. It was subsequently praised as “a triumph of literature” by the Financial Times and “a novel of enormous intelligence” by the Daily Telegraph. The day after the announcement, US publisher HarperVia acquired rights to the book.