The Booker Prize Foundation has announced the judging panel for the 2027 International Booker Prize alongside the news that its future has been secured for the next decade. Following an initial partnership in 2026, the grant-giving organisation Bukhman Philanthropies has committed to a ten-year funding guarantee of £1.4 million per year.
In recognition of this decade-long partnership, the award will be re-named the Bukhman International Booker Prize. As part of this investment, the prize fund for the winning title will double from £50,000 to £100,000, to be split equally between the author and the translator or translators.
Critically acclaimed author Katie Kitamura will chair the 2027 judging panel, which also features writers Patrick McGuinness, Caleb Azumah Nelson, and Olga Ravn, and actor Tessa Thompson. The panel will select the best works of translated fiction published in the UK and Ireland between 1 May 2026 and 30 April 2027.
View 3 ImagesThe judging panel for the 2027 International Booker Prize(Image: Booker Prize Foundation)
Reflecting on her appointment, Katie Kitamura said: “The International Booker Prize is a visionary prize, one that has consistently celebrated the best fiction from around the world. It has shaped me as a reader and a writer, introducing me to new books, authors, and schools of writing.”
Kitamura emphasised the profound cultural weight of the medium, noting: “Translation represents a dialogue between two minds. The Bukhman International Booker Prize offers readers the opportunity to experience the profound encounter between author and translator. As a prize, it is exemplary in the way it recognises the work of both participants. The celebration and support of this intrinsically human collaboration feels particularly vital right now.”
The announcement arrives as the prize celebrates a highly successful decade in its current form, having evolved into the world’s most influential award for translated fiction since its inception in 2016. This commercial power was recently demonstrated by the 2026 winner, Taiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King, which saw UK sales skyrocket following its win.
Gaby Wood, Chief Executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, expressed immense gratitude for the long-term security this new funding brings, stating: “We are incredibly grateful to Bukhman Philanthropies for their extraordinary commitment in funding the next 10 years of the International Booker Prize, and to Daria Bukhman for her personal support for translated work. When we launched this incarnation of the prize a decade ago, we did so in the hope that more great work from other languages and cultures would reach anglophone readers. We hoped to join publishers, agents, scouts, booksellers and others in a global-thinking enterprise, and to become a collective force for good.”
View 3 ImagesTaiwan Travelogue by Yáng Shuāng-zǐ and translated by Lin King won the 2026 International Booker Prize(Image: David Parry)
Wood remarked on the tangible success achieved so far, adding: “The results after 10 years have been hugely gratifying: in the UK, sales of translated fiction have risen by 31 per cent – driven largely by readers under the age of 35. Beyond the UK, the rights to the original editions of International Booker-nominated books have been sold in dozens of other territories as a result of the light shone on them by the prize.
“And the knock-on effect of an International Booker Prize win in the author’s home country has been exponential, with, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of copies of the original edition reprinted as a result. Though the prize is designed to reward an individual book, it often draws attention to an author more generally: we’re very proud that five International Booker Prize winners or nominees have gone on to win the Nobel Prize for their body of work.”
The funding will allow the foundation to invest in the wider literary ecosystem, including gifting 500 sets of each shortlist to local UK communities through library authorities in partnership with The Reading Agency. It will also expand prison reading programmes, ensure Braille and audio accessibility, and continue the PEN Presents x International Booker Prize partnership to diversify the UK publishing landscape.
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Since its inception in 2016, the International Booker Prize has celebrated outstanding writing from around the world, honoured 11 winners in 11 different languages and driven a significant increase in sales of translated fiction in the UK. Five authors recognised by the International Prize have gone on to win the Nobel Prize in Literature: Annie Ernaux, Jon Fosse, Han Kang, Olga Tokarczuk and László Krasznahorkai.
A longlist of 12 or 13 books will be announced on Tuesday, 16 March 2027 with a shortlist of six books to follow on Thursday, 15 April 2027. The winning book will be announced at a ceremony in May 2027.
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