Booker Prize winners and shortlisted books

Who this page is for

Readers looking for books that won or were shortlisted for the Booker Prize or the International Booker Prize, and book clubs choosing a prize-listed title. Each entry says what the book is about and who it may suit. Longlisted books are not included.

Booker Prize winners

• 2025: Flesh by David Szalay. Follows István from a quiet Hungarian apartment complex at fifteen, through the army, into London's wealthy elite; for readers who want a novel that traces one man's life across decades.
• 2024: Orbital by Samantha Harvey. A team of astronauts on the International Space Station circle the Earth sixteen times in a single day; a 144-page novel for readers who want something short and reflective about the planet seen from orbit.
• 2023: Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Eilish Stack, a Dublin scientist and mother of four, must keep her family safe after Ireland's new secret police come to question her trade-unionist husband and he disappears; for readers of dystopian fiction centred on family.
• 2022: The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka. A war photographer wakes up dead in Colombo in 1990 and has seven moons to lead the people he loves to a hidden cache of photographs; a magical-realist whodunnit set during Sri Lanka's civil war.
• 2019 (joint winner with Bernardine Evaristo's Girl, Woman, Other): The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. The sequel to The Handmaid's Tale follows two girls and Aunt Lydia as the Republic of Gilead begins to rot from within; this edition adds book club discussion points.
• 2009: Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. The first book in Hilary Mantel's trilogy about Thomas Cromwell's rise at the court of Henry VIII; a 672-page historical novel for readers ready for a long read.
• 1990: Possession by A S Byatt. Two young scholars follow a trail of letters, journals and poems into the lives of two Victorian poets; for readers who want a literary detective story and a love story in one book.

Booker Prize shortlisted books

2025 shortlist

• Flashlight by Susan Choi. After her father goes missing from a breakwater in a Japanese coastal town, ten-year-old Louisa and her mother return to the US while the mystery of that night slowly unravels; a 528-page family novel for readers who like a long book built around a mystery.
• The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller. Two couples in the West Country face the blizzards of December 1962 as their lives begin to unravel; it also won the Walter Scott Prize 2025, and suits readers of historical fiction about marriage.
• The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai. Sonia, an aspiring novelist, and Sunny, a journalist in New York, meet on an overnight train years after their grandparents tried to match them; a 688-page novel of love and family across India and America.

2024 shortlist

• Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner. Sadie Smith, an American undercover agent, is sent to infiltrate a commune of radical activists in rural France; for readers who enjoy spy stories.
• James by Percival Everett. In 1861 Jim, who is enslaved, runs away when he learns he is to be sold away from his wife and daughter, and journeys along the Mississippi with Huck Finn; for readers of historical fiction about slavery in America.
• The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden. Fifteen years after the Second World War, Isabel's strictly ordered life in her late mother's house is upset when her brother's girlfriend comes to stay; the publisher pitches it at readers of Patricia Highsmith and Sarah Waters.

2023 shortlist

• Western Lane by Chetna Maroo. After her mother dies, eleven-year-old Gopi is put through a hard squash training regime by her father; a 176-page novel about grief, sisters and sport.

2022 shortlist

• Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo. A novel about power and corruption, told through Destiny, who returns home to a country on the brink of revolution; for readers of political fiction.
• Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout. Lucy Barton, now a widowed writer in New York, reconnects with her first husband, William, and uncovers family secrets; for readers who know Lucy Barton from earlier novels or like fiction about decades-long relationships.
• The Trees by Percival Everett. Detectives investigate a series of murders in Money, Mississippi, where a body resembling Emmett Till appears at each scene; a satire for readers who want crime fiction that confronts racial violence in America.

2017 shortlist

• 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster. Follows four different versions of Archibald Ferguson's life from his birth in 1947 across mid-twentieth-century America; at 1,088 pages it suits readers who want a long, immersive novel.
• Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. Nadia and Saeed, newly in love in a city at war, step through doors that lead to other countries; a 240-page novel about love and leaving home.

2015 shortlist

• A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara. Four college friends make their lives in New York over several decades, with the story focused on Jude and the effects of his childhood; a 752-page novel about living with trauma. Readers should know that it describes Jude's suffering in unsparing detail, and its publisher calls it often harrowing.

2012 shortlist

• The Garden of Evening Mists by Tan Twan Eng. In post-war Malaya, Yun Ling seeks out Aritomo, once gardener to the Emperor of Japan, to build a memorial to her sister; it also won the Walter Scott Prize 2013, and suits readers of historical fiction about war and memory.

2005 shortlist

• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Kathy looks back on her childhood at Hailsham School and the fate awaiting her and her friends in a darkly skewed version of England; for readers who like literary fiction with a speculative premise.

2000 shortlist

• When We Were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro. Christopher Banks, a celebrated London detective of the 1930s, is haunted by his parents' disappearance in Shanghai when he was a boy; for readers who like a detective story told as literary fiction.

International Booker Prize winners

• 2023: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov. Gaustine opens a 'clinic for the past' for people with Alzheimer's, each floor recreating a decade, until healthy people start using it to escape the present; translated by Angela Rodel.
• 2016: The Vegetarian by Han Kang. Yeong-hye's decision to stop eating meat, prompted by recurring nightmares, sets off a disturbing chain of events in her family in South Korea; translated by Deborah Smith, and readers should know the book includes sexual violence and attempted suicide.

International Booker Prize shortlisted books

2026 shortlist

• On Earth As It Is Beneath by Ana Paula Maia. In a penal colony built on land where enslaved people were once tortured, inmates are released and hunted on full-moon nights as the prison winds down; a 112-page novel translated from Portuguese by Padma Viswanathan.

2025 shortlist

• On the Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle. Tara Selter wakes every morning to 18 November and cannot move on to the next day; the first volume of a series, translated from Danish by Barbara J. Haveland, for readers drawn to time-loop stories.
• Small Boat by Vincent Delecroix. A fictional account narrated by the French emergency operator who took the calls when a migrant dinghy capsized in the Channel in November 2021; translated from French by Helen Stevenson.

2023 shortlist

• Boulder by Eva Baltasar. A ship's cook follows her partner Samsa to Reykjavik, where Samsa decides she wants a child; a 112-page novel about a queer relationship and motherhood, translated by Julia Sanches.
• Standing Heavy by Gauz'. Two generations of Ivorian men work as security guards in Paris from the 1960s to the 2010s; a satire of colonial legacies and consumerism, translated from the French by Frank Wynne.

2021 shortlist

• When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut. A 192-page literary work about scientific discovery and the uncertain line between genius and madness; translated by Adrian Nathan West.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between the Booker Prize and the International Booker Prize?

The Booker Prize is for a work of fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland. The International Booker Prize is for a single book translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland, and its prize money is divided equally between the author and the translator.

Which book won the Booker Prize in 2025?

Flesh by David Szalay won the Booker Prize 2025. Orbital by Samantha Harvey won in 2024.

Which book won the International Booker Prize in 2023?

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel.

How were these books checked?

Every win and shortlisting on this page was checked against the official Booker Prizes lists of winners, shortlisted and longlisted books.

Selected by Fox & Fable from books in stock. Last updated 30 September 2026.