Booker International Prize 2024 Longlist

This novel plunges readers into an intense, unconventional love affair set against the unraveling backdrop of East Germany’s final years. The relationship is messy, magnetic, and emotionally consuming, mirroring a nation on the edge of transformation. Through shifting power dynamics and letters full of longing, the story explores the fragility of trust and the weight of shared history. The political undertones remain subtle but powerful, deepening the emotional resonance. It’s a book that lingers, asking you to revisit its contradictions long after you finish.

Set in the Brazilian hinterlands, this novel unfolds through the intertwined lives of two sisters bound by a strange childhood accident. The writing blends folklore, spirituality, and social realism, giving the story a lush sense of place. Themes of land, labor, and ancestral heritage anchor the narrative, while the sisters’ relationship offers a deeply personal emotional core. The pacing is steady but powerful, building toward revelations that feel both surprising and inevitable. It’s an evocative journey into a world shaped by history and resilience.

A deceptively simple fishing trip unfolds into a tense, ghostly tale full of unresolved guilt and unspoken history. The narrative flows like the river itself — calm on the surface, troubled underneath. With sharp, economical prose, the story captures the macho rhythms of rural life while hinting at something darker that refuses to be buried. The atmosphere grows steadily more claustrophobic, as if the land itself is holding its breath. It’s the kind of novel that reveals its true weight only after you close the final page.

Composed as a series of interlinked vignettes, this novel paints a haunting portrait of a rural Polish community marked by silence, superstition, and unspoken grief. Each character reveals a different emotional wound, yet the stories connect in subtle, surprising ways. The atmosphere is wintry and dreamlike, with an undercurrent of menace that never fully surfaces. Honek’s approach invites readers to read between the lines, discovering meanings in what isn’t said. It’s delicate, eerie, and strangely beautiful.

The novel begins with a feverish narrator revisiting the four people who quietly shaped her life. What unfolds is a mosaic of relationships — fleeting, intense, sometimes strange — captured with striking emotional acuity. Genberg pays attention to the small things, the overlooked moments that stay with us long after the people themselves drift away. The interplay between memory and identity creates a hypnotic rhythm. It’s a slim book, but one that feels expansive in its emotional reach.

This sweeping novel travels through a century of Korean history via the life of a railway worker and those connected to him. The story blends myth, memory, and political struggle, creating a tapestry that feels both intimate and monumental. Its nonlinear structure mirrors the disorientation of historical upheaval while illuminating the quiet persistence of ordinary people. Themes of resistance and solidarity echo throughout, giving the book a powerful emotional undertow. It’s ambitious, richly layered, and deeply human.

This genre-blurring narrative moves between continents and centuries as the narrator investigates her family's tangled colonial past. Personal essay, travelogue, and documentary storytelling merge into a form that feels boldly original. Wiener explores identity with a mix of irreverence and vulnerability, never shying away from discomfort. The book asks what it means to inherit a history you didn’t choose but can’t escape. It’s both provocative and unexpectedly tender.

In a near-future Venezuela hollowed out by crisis, one man inherits a dog — and with it, a journey through a landscape shaped by loss and absurdity. The novel is suffused with dark humor, political commentary, and moments of surreal strangeness. Every encounter feels like a snapshot of a society stretched thin but still vibrating with stubborn life. The narrator’s voice is sharp, ironic, and unexpectedly vulnerable. It’s a story that balances bleakness with a peculiar warmth.

Told with striking clarity and emotional precision, this novel explores grief through the voice of a twin left behind. The narrator’s honesty is disarming, weaving dark humor and raw sorrow into a portrait of loss that feels intimate rather than sentimental. Thoughts loop, repeat, and spiral — capturing how mourning resists neat conclusions. Despite the heavy themes, the tone remains tender and surprisingly light in moments. It’s a book that sits quietly with the reader, refusing to offer easy answers.

Centering on a frustrated artist and the family he tyrannizes, this novel offers a sharp, unsentimental look at ambition, ego, and the ways family mythology is constructed. The narrator’s voice is rich with observation and mordant humor, peeling back layers of resentment and affection. Naples is vividly rendered — chaotic, intimate, and inseparable from the characters’ emotional lives. The book manages to be both expansive and tightly controlled. It’s a bold portrait of artistic obsession and its collateral damage.

Funny, chaotic, and sharply self-aware, this novel follows a narrator whose life often feels like a series of comedic misalignments. Raimo’s voice is witty and candid, turning anxiety and awkwardness into something disarmingly charming. The structure is playful, darting through memories and confessions with a sense of spontaneity. Beneath the humor lies a deeper reflection on identity and desire. It’s a refreshing blend of the quirky and the poignant.

Stepping into this novel feels like entering a slightly off-kilter, noir-tinged version of Kyiv in the 1910s. There’s a missing bone, a string of mysterious deaths, and a detective who can’t shake the sense that the city’s shadows are watching him. Kurkov blends dark humor with a playful sense of the absurd, making the mystery feel fresh and strange in equal measure. The result is atmospheric without being heavy. A delight for readers who enjoy crime stories with a wink.

A single mysterious phone call — supposedly made by Stalin to Pasternak — becomes the prism through which this novel examines art, power, and paranoia. The narrative loops through interpretations, interpretations of interpretations, and historical ambiguities. Kadare blends essayistic inquiry with storytelling, creating a slippery, fascinating hybrid. The book encourages readers to question what is real, what is convenient myth, and who gets to control a story’s meaning. It’s a cerebral puzzle box with a dark comedic edge.