Brazil’s Ana Paula Maia Named International Booker 2026 Finalist

Overview

• Maia was named to the six-book shortlist Tuesday, confirming her place in the International Booker Prize 2026 final round.
• Her 2017 novel On Earth As It Is Beneath, translated by Padma Viswanathan from Assim na terra como embaixo da terra, is the nominated work.
• Prize jurors praised the book as short, brutal, unsettling and hypnotic, set in a remote Brazilian penal colony where justice and cruelty blur.
• The winner will be announced on 19 May at London’s Tate Modern, with the £50,000 award split evenly between the author and the translator.
• From an initial pool of 128 eligible titles, jurors named a 13-book longlist on 24 February before selecting the six finalists, and the prize has yet to produce a Spanish- or Portuguese-language winner in its first decade.