Man Booker International Prize

Man Booker International Prize
Inaugural winner Ismail Kadare
Awarded for	Best book in English translation
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	Man Group
Reward(s)	£50,000
First awarded	2005
Official website	http://themanbookerprize.com/international

The Man Booker International Prize is an international literary award hosted in the United Kingdom. The introduction of the International Prize to complement the Man Booker Prize was announced in June 2004. Sponsored by the Man Group, from 2005 until 2015 the award was given every two years to a living author of any nationality for a body of work published in English or generally available in English translation. It rewarded one author's "continued creativity, development and overall contribution to fiction on the world stage," and was a recognition of the writer's body of work rather than any one title. The judges for the year compiled their own lists of authors, and submissions were not invited.

Beginning in 2016, the award was significantly reconfigured. It is now given annually to a single book in English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title, shared equally between author and translator.

While the Man Booker Prize was, from its beginning, only open to writers from the Commonwealth, Ireland and Zimbabwe (but later opened to authors from all over the world), the International Prize was open to all nationalities. The award was worth £60,000 and an author could only win once. The Man Booker International prize also allowed for a separate award for translation. The winning author could choose a translator of their work into English to receive a prize sum of £15,000.

A similar prize to the original Man Booker International Prize is the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, also awarded biennially. By contrast, the Nobel Prize in Literature, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the Franz Kafka Prize are each awarded annually.

On Tuesday 7 July 2015, the Booker Prize Foundation announced that the Man Booker International Prize was to evolve from 2016 onwards into a prize for fiction in translation. Its aim is to encourage more publishing and reading of quality works in translation, and to highlight the work of translators. The award is now given annually to a book in English translation, with a £50,000 prize for the winning title to be shared equally between author and translator. Each shortlisted author and translator receives £1,000. This brings the total prize fund to £62,000 per year, compared to the previous £37,500 for the Man Booker International Prize and £10,000 for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. The new Man Booker International Prize complements the Man Booker Prize. The judges select a longlist of 12 or 13 books in March, followed by a shortlist of six in April, with the winner announced in May.