In the lead up the 2025 International Booker Prize, the prestigious organisation has released a star-studded video series to spotlight its shortlist. The series includes six impeccably directed and visually captivating readings of the shortlist, performed by some of the UK’s most well-known actors, actresses and comedians.
Staring straight into camera, each star pulls viewers into the world of the book with an intimate two-minute reading. The six actors in the series include: Ambika Mod (One Day, This Is Going To Hurt); Lucy Boynton (Barbie, Bohemian Rhapsody); Peter Serafinowicz (Amandaland; Shaun of the Dead); Rosalind Eleazar (Slow Horses, Deep Water); Jamie Demetriou (Fleabag, Stath Lets Flats); and Omari Douglas (Black Doves, Rye Lane).
Each video feels like a mini-movie. Lucy Boynton’s reading of On the Calculation of Volume 1 features the actress sitting at a desk, head in hand, surrounded by dozens of half-drunk teacups as she takes on the voice of a bookseller trapped in a time loop.
Peter Serafinowicz, off to the side of a quiet restaurant dining room, draws the camera in with his embodiment of an anguished narrator with an intense attachment to a platonic friend. You can watch all six videos on the Booker Prize Instagram page or YouTube channel.
Each film in the series was directed by Roxy Rezvany, a BIFA and London Critics Circle-nominated director and producer. The online response to the mini-films has been spectacular, with many saying it’s a brilliant way to bring in a new readership and market the books. One Instagram user commented on the directors’ Instagram page: “these films are excellent – it’s been a long time since I’ve seen such an innovative approach to literature-related communication.”
Other commenters pointed out that the films have helped them see the books in a new light. One user admitted that Mod’s reading of Heart Lamp made her a convert: “Okay I hadn’t been immediately drawn to this one. That has changed.”
The organisation has called its latest shortlist a feast of fiction from around the world that offers “a miraculous lens through which to view human experience”. The books cover a range of topics including survival and self-preservation and are set in locations around the world.
The 2025 judging panel includes award-winning poets, authors and previous Booker winners, including: Max Porter; Caleb Femi; Wasafiri Sana Goyal; Anton Hur; and Beth Orton. The judges narrowed down their longlist of 13 books to this list of 6 short-listed books from 154 books published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 May 2024 and 30 April 2025.
Max Porter says he and the other judges want people to feel inspired to converse when they read these books, and draw their own conclusions about them: “‘We need literature that shocks, delights and baffles and reveals how weird many of us feel about the way we are living now. Ultimately, these books widen the view.” Porter continues: “They enhance the quality of conversation we are all having. They don’t shut down debate, they generate it. They don’t have all the answers, but they ask extraordinary questions.”
For the first time in the prize’s history, all six shortlisted books are from independent publishers, according to the Booker website. The shortlist also reflects the work of authors and translators from around the world, including Denmark, England, Japan, India, Scotland, France and Italy. The winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize will be announced on May 20, 2025 at a ceremony at the Tate Modern in London.
The annual prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction and short stories translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland. It is considered the “world’s most influential award for translation fiction” and previous winners include: The Vegetarian by Han Kang (2016), Flights by Olga Tokarczuk (2018), and The Discomfort of Evening by Lucas Rijneveld (2020. Last year’s winner was Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck.
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