Six titles have been shortlisted for the 2025 Warwick Prize, established by the University of Warwick in 2017 to address the gender imbalance in translated literature.
The £1,000 prize highlights outstanding writing and seeks to broaden the range of international women's voices accessible to readers in the UK and Ireland. Now in its ninth year, the prize received 145 eligible entries across 34 languages.
The 2025 shortlist, in alphabetical order, comprises:
- 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)
- Maylis Besserie, Francis Bacon's Nanny, translated from French (France) by Clíona Ní Ríordáin (The Lilliput Press)
- Krisztina Tóth, My Secret Life, translated from Hungarian (Hungary) by George Szirtes (Bloodaxe Books)
- Liliana Corobca, Too Great A Sky, translated from Romanian (Romania) by Monica Cure (Seven Stories Press UK)
- 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 winner will be announced on 27 November 2025 at a ceremony in London. The £1,000 prize is divided between the writer and her translator(s), with each contributor receiving an equal share.
Reflecting on the 2025 shortlist, the judging panel of Boyd Tonkin, Susan Bassnett and Véronique Tadjo noted that the three remarkable novels on this year's shortlist - by Evelyne Trouillot, Han Kang and Liliana Corobca - deal in different but equally powerful ways with the traumas of history, and their long afterlives in memory, art, and narrative.
"From Haiti, South Korea and the lands of the former Soviet Union, these books make the lingering shadows of the past into fully-realised experiences that can be transformed and redeemed by their telling.
"In contrast, Maylis Besserie reinvents the genre of the "artist-novel" with wit, compassion and ingenuity. Kristina Toth's luminous and haunting poetry tells the story of a self, in public and private. And Johanna Ekström's and Sigrid Rausing's commanding end-of-life memoir looks, with singular craft and courage, at how all our stories end.
"Each of these books arrives in English in expert and accessible translations that honour the art and voice of their original authors."
Judge Susan Bassnett added: "Judging has been challenging this year because of the very high quality of so many of the books. We ended our shortlisting meeting pleased with the final selection, but with a tinge of regret that we had had to eliminate some wonderful writing and superb translations along the way."
The Warwick Prize for Women in Translation is supported in 2025 by the School of Creative Arts, Performance and Visual Cultures at the University of Warwick, and by the British Centre for Literary Translation at the University of East Anglia.
