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In the world of the Booker Prizes this week: Get to know the IBP judges; a selection of steamy reads for Valentine's Day; Damion Searls on the art of translation; and how to organise your bookshelf
Meet the International Booker Prize judges: 'Reading translated fiction makes you sexy'
The longlist for the International Booker Prize 2025 is set to be announced on 25 February at 2pm (GMT). The 12 or 13 works of fiction, translated from a wide range of languages into English and published in the UK and Ireland, will be chosen by this year’s judging panel, chaired by Max Porter, who is joined by Caleb Femi, Sana Goyal, Anton Hur and Beth Orton.
With just under two weeks to go until the big reveal, we spoke to some of the judges about their reading habits, their favourite works of translated fiction – and what they are looking for on the longlist.
Damion Searls: ‘Nothing is untranslatable’
‘Translators read to decide what’s important and what’s less important, then re-create what they’ve decided is important; the debates about whether to translate literally or for the overall sense, whether to domesticate a term or leave it foreign sounding, whether to translate rhymed and metered poetry with rhyme and meter, and all the rest are pointless, because – obviously – it depends…’
In this extract from his book The Philosophy of Translation, the International Booker Prize-shortlisted translator explains how the boundaries of language are always permeable.
Nine of the steamiest reads from the Booker Library for Valentine’s Day
As a genre, romance can get a bad rap. Often dismissed as fluff or – worse! – smut, it suffers from the hangover of bodice-rippers and swoon-worthy covers of yesteryear that promised bored housewives happily-ever-afters. But recently, romantic fiction and erotica have had a long-overdue makeover, and sales have skyrocketed. Readers are unashamedly turning to steamy reads for escapism – and the spicier, the better. Clearly, sex still sells. Here, just in time for Valentine’s Day, we’ve compiled a list of steamy Booker-nominated reads that are bound to leave you feeling hot under the collar.
Shelf control: How to organise your bookshelves
You know how the old saying goes: perusing someone else's bookshelf is like staring into their soul. Well, perhaps it’s not an old saying – but it really should be. As book lovers, we know all too well a bookshelf is more than just storage – it’s a reflection of personality, style, and how you connect with your beloved books. And the way you stack your shelves? It says as much about you as the books themselves. Here, members of the Booker Prizes team share how they organise their TBR piles and home libraries. Now, how about yours?
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