Longlist 2025
The 14 longlisted titles are:
- Johanna Ekström and Sigrid Rausing, And the Walls Became the World All Around, translated from Swedish (Sweden) by Sigrid Rausing (Granta)
- Evelyne Trouillot, Désirée Congo, translated from French (Haiti) by M.A. Salvodon (University of Virginia Press)
- Fatma Aydemir, Djinns, translated from German (Germany) by Jon Cho-Polizzi (Peirene Press)
- Olga Tokarczuk, The Empusium, translated from Polish (Poland) by Antonia Lloyd-Jones (Fitzcarraldo Editions)
- Maylis Besserie, Francis Bacon's Nanny, translated from French (France) by Clíona Ní Ríordáin (The Lilliput Press)
- María Bastarós, Hungry for What, translated from Spanish (Spain), by Kevin Gerry Dunn (Daunt Books Publishing)
- Elsa Morante, Lies and Sorcery, translated from Italian (Italy) by Jenny McPhee (Penguin Press)
- Krisztina Tóth, My Secret Life, translated from Hungarian (Hungary) by George Szirtes (Bloodaxe Books)
- Kim Hyesoon, Phantom Pain Wings, translated from Korean (South Korea) by Don Mee Choi (And Other Stories)
- Liliana Corobca, Too Great A Sky, translated from Romanian (Romania) by Monica Cure (Seven Stories Press UK)
- Laura Wittner, Translation of the Route, translated from Spanish (Argentina) by Juana Adcock (Bloodaxe Books and Poetry Translation Centre)
- Sara Mesa, Un Amor, translated from Spanish (Spain) by Katie Whittemore (Peirene Press)
- Lucija Stupica, Vanishing Points, translated from Slovenian (Slovenia) by Andrej Peric (Arc Publications)
- Han Kang, We Do Not Part, translated from Korean (South Korea) by e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House UK)
The prize is generously supported in 2025 by the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures and the British Centre for Literary Translation.
Warwick Prize for Women in Translation longlist 2025
14 titles have been longlisted for the eighth annual award of the Warwick Prize for Women in Translation.
The £1000 prize was established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to address the gender imbalance in translated literature and to increase the number of international women’s voices accessible by a British and Irish readership. The prize is judged by Susan Bassnett, Véronique Tadjo and Boyd Tonkin.
In 2024, the prize was awarded to Andrew Shanks for his translation of the collected poetry of Nelly Sachs, Revelation Freshly Erupting (Carcanet Press).
The 2025 competition received a total of 145 eligible entries from 34 languages.
The longlist covers 10 languages, with Slovenian represented for the first time in the history of the prize. The list is dominated by independent publishers.
The judges said of the 2025 longlist:
“This year, as every year, the longlist for this award showcases the extraordinary range and depth of global women’s writing now available to readers in English. The inclusive scope of this prize means that it crosses borders not just language and space but of time as well. This year, as before, we have rediscovered newly-translated modern classics as well as sampling outstanding new work from around the globe. Our longlist travels from Argentina to South Korea, from Haiti to Romania, from Sweden to Slovenia.”
“For this award that considers all genres on equal terms, the judges have found longlist places not only for fiction of all sorts - from fiercely contemporary short stories to the epic debut by one of the 20th century’s greatest literary voices. We have selected searing memoir too, and (this year) an especially rich haul of poetry. The poetry books stretch from luminous snapshots of everyday experience to immersive mythic narrative in verse. Like our prose selections, they demonstrate the vision and artistry both of the original authors - and of the translators who carry this precious cargo across languages and cultures. Without them, our imaginative worlds would be so much smaller, and poorer.”
Judge Susan Bassnett added:
“One of the most exciting aspects of judging a literary prize is that one reads all kinds of books that are sometimes way outside one’s comfort zone. We feel that we have chosen a wide range of excellent writing by women from around the world. Inevitably, not everyone’s choices have made it through to the longlist, but we are all in full agreement that these titles reflect the excellence of the writers and their translators whose work we have been privileged to read.”
Véronique Tadjo commented:
“It has been a real privilege to read the exciting longlist of the 2025 Warwick Women in Translation prize. The scope of creativity and imagination is a delight. Works by well-established authors sit next to those of new voices. Thanks to excellent translations, we had access to literary gems which would have remained hidden from readers of English. This is the power of translation: to open up the world, to cross borders and to remind us, once more, that we share the same humanity.”
The shortlist for the prize will be published at the end of October. The winner will be announced at a ceremony at The Shard in London on Thursday 27thNovember.