By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
One of Five Categories of 2025 Longlists
As Publishing Perspectives readers will recall, the United States’ National Book Awards program in September releases a total five categories of longlisted books in three days’ time.
We will publish today (September 9), the Translated Literature category’s longlist because, being an international news medium, translation and the work of translators is the closest field to many of our readers’ interests of the five categories in the competition, most especially our rights directors, international literary agents who work in translation rights, and our literary scouts.
The National Book Awards’ 2025 shortlists—often called finalists in the lexicon of this prize regime—are expected to be released on October 7. Winners are then to be named on November 19 at the 76th iteration of the program’s fundraising event in New York City.
Last year’s winner in the Translated Literature category was Yáng Shuang-zi’s Taiwan Travelogue (Graywolf Press) in its translation by Lin King.
This year’s level of submissions for the Translation category award—established in 2018—seems to have continued a gentle downward overall glide. In 2022, publishers submitted 141 entries. In 2023, that moved up to 154 entries. Last year, the category drew 142. And this year, the National Book Foundation says, there were 139 books put forward for the award. Only one year’s number of entries has been lower than this year’s, and that was the pandemic year of 2020, when there were just 130 submissions.
These numbers are of interest to our readers, of course, because there’s longstanding concern about the United States’ market being a very tough one for literature from other cultures and languages. The inception of the still-young Translation category was thus seen in 2018 as very good news, with its capacity to call attention to translated work and its values.
This year’s longlist of 10 titles comprises works originally published in nine non-English languages:
- Arabic
- Danish
- Dutch
- French
- Italian
- Japanese
- Korean
- Spanish
- Uzbek
The work from Uzbek represents a debut for literature from that language on the National Book Awards longlist.
Those who regularly follow the US National Book Awards will notice three authors and translators previously recognized by the program in this translated literature category:
- Solvej Balle was longlisted in 2024 for On the Calculation of Volume (Book I);
- Sophie Hughes was longlisted for her translations of Hurricane Season in 2020 and of This Is Not Miami in 2023, both written by Fernanda Melchor. Hughes was also longlisted in 2024 for her translation of Layla Martinez’s debut novel, Woodworm, co-translated with Annie McDermott; and
- Christina MacSweeney was longlisted in 2021 for her translation of Elvira Navarro’s Rabbit Island: Stories.
The 2025 National Book Awards Translated Literature Longlist
The jury for the Translated Literature category this year comprises Stesha Brandon (chair); Sergio Gutiérrez Negrón; Bill Johnston; Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel; and Karen Tei Yamashita.
| Author | Title | Original Language | Translator | Publisher / Imprint |
| Solvej Balle | On the Calculation of Volume (Book III) | Danish | Sophia Hersi Smith and Jennifer Russell | New Directions Publishing |
| Jazmina Barrera | The Queen of Swords | Spanish | Christina MacSweeney | Two Lines Press |
| Gabriela Cabezón Cámara | We Are Green and Trembling | Spanish | Robin Myers | New Directions |
| Anjet Daanje | The Remembered Soldier | Dutch | David McKay | New Vessel Press |
| Saou Ichikawa | Hunchback | Japanese | Polly Barton | Penguin Random House / Hogarth |
| Hamid Ismailov | We Computers: A Ghazal Novel | Uzbek | Shelley Fairweather-Vega | Yale University Press |
| Han Kang | We Do Not Part | Korean | e. yaewon and Paige Aniyah Morris | Penguin Random House / Hogarth |
| Mohamed Kheir | Sleep Phase | Arabic | Robin Moger | Two Lines Press |
| Vincenzo Latronico | Perfection | Italian | Sophie Hughes | New York Review Books |
| Neige Sinno | Sad Tiger | French | Natasha Lehrer | Seven Stories Press |
Jurors’ decisions are made independently of the National Book Foundation staff and board of directors, and deliberations are strictly confidential.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the National Book Awards in the United States is here and more on the huge field of international book awards and prizes is here. More from us on translation and translators is here, more on international publishing rights is here, and more on the United States’ market is here.
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