Students review novels shortlisted for International Booker Prize 2025

A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson – reviewed by Maria-Valentina Nandra

A Leopard-Skin Hat, the fourth book by the French author Anne Serre to be translated into English by Mark Hutchinson, unfolds under the panoptic gaze of an unconventional Narrator for not only does he indulge in fabricating an elusive story, but also in acting out a romantic fascination for the (his) protagonist, Fanny. Most disquieting, however, is Serre’s suggestion of a fractured psyche. The uncanny, striking similarities between Fanny and the Narrator evoke a sense of psychological doubling as if they were two voices of the same mind.

Seer’s prose plays into the surrealist's’ symbolic extravagance whilst Fanny, by absence of complete characterisation is sublimed into permutations of mental states. She flows through the world with a prodigal hyper-awareness that paradoxically renders her inoperative and uncooperative. Yet, she is anything but unremarkable.

Like Fanny, we too are disjointed and destabilised: battling inner demons or oscillating between euphoria, certainty about the future, arrogant self-assurance and pessimism, despair, hopeless. To piece back together the shards of Serre’s protagonist would construct a mirror in which to catch a glimpse of ourselves. The story compels through its inquisitive drive and haunts through reflections.

A Leopard-Skin Hat by Anne Serre, translated by Mark Hutchinson – reviewed by Abigail Andersen

Here is a scrapbook of prose so finely, delicately pieced together that it is difficult to believe this is not the novel’s native language. Tweezers clutched, the meticulously-assembled adjectives endeavour to characterise the uncharacterisable. The Narrator grasps at ways to describe Fanny, but the words ring discordant as she slips through his fingers. This inadequacy of narration tells, perhaps, of the relationship between a woman writing about a man writing about a woman, all translated by a man. These relationships are all as symbiotic as Fanny and the Narrator's, theirs which is at once parasitic and flowering. The novel paints this landscape of friendship: the minefields, the poppy fields – there they are, the two of them, birds in flight, twirling around one another, dizzied and beautiful and doomed.

No metaphor can quite contain Fanny, and as a reader you must be satisfied with this. This is a novel about what could have been, and a struggle to say what is. Existentialism bejewels the narration of a woman so otherworldly that you wonder whether this is her divine power or her divine Achilles heel.

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi – reviewed by Gefan Wang

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq is a collection of twelve short stories portraying the lives of Muslim women in Southern India. Mushtaq – an advocate, lawyer, and writer from Hassan, Karnataka – transforms her years of activism into a series of intimate portraits of women who protest against marital abuse and the oppression of traditional village structures. The female characters from the collection – oscillating between their identities as wives, mothers, sisters, and friends – unite to challenge the established power relations within their families and local communities. Deepa Bhasthi’s brilliant translation, which retains select words in Kannada, Urdu, and Arabic, highlights the unique multilingual dimensions of Mushtaq’s oeuvre. While deeply rooted in a specific sociocultural fabric, Heart Lamp powerfully illuminates Mushtaq’s vision of writing as a form of resistance against the universal struggles and social injustices faced by women around the world.

Heart Lamp by Banu Mushtaq, translated by Deepa Bhasthi – reviewed by Neha Veera

A collection of short stories written across 30 years, Heart Lamp is both literally and figuratively a testament to the unwavering grit of women forced to survive in a society that views them as second-class. A body of work inspired by Mushtaq’s lived experiences in southern India, each story provides a heartrending glimpse into the lives of mothers, wives, and daughters who suffer at the hands of patriarchy– and the men who benefit from it. She invites readers on a journey through the streets of rural India and into the often dysfunctional homes of its inhabitants, crafting mesmeric tales that blend themes of religious piety with familial tension and rebellion.

Fellow Indian readers may be quick to recognise the colloquialisms and slang interspersed throughout the English translation, a nice touch of authenticity maintained from the original version written in Kannada. All-in-all, Mushtaq’s writing is equal parts gutsy and gut-wrenching, making for a captivating read.

On The Calculation of Volume I by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland – reviewed by Alexandra Cengher

When discussing time and entropy, physicist Carlo Rovelli stops to wonder: “If I could take into account all the details of the exact, microscopic state of the world, would the characteristic aspects of the flowing of time disappear?” He should ask Tara Selter, the protagonist of Solvej Balle’s septology, On the Calculation of Volume. For Tara, time halts on November 18. Ever since her uneventful book-buying trip to Paris, she’s been trapped in an endless loop, reliving the same day, regardless of where she is or whom she tells about the secret doorway out of time she stumbled upon. Echoing Groundhog Day, the brilliance of this first volume lies not in events, but in their meticulous rendering. The granular prose, the quiet sprouting of questions Balle allows to grow with each page, left for readers to nurture, the open-ended finale: all led me to step into the first bookstore I saw and buy the second volume.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda – reviewed by K. Lin

This nominee of the International Booker Prize, originally published in 2016, offers a bleak speculation of humanity's future. A soft science fiction with fantastical elements, the style of this novel is reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, with its unsophisticated language and vague technology. There is no particular narrative surrounding anyone throughout the 14 chapters, or rather, independent short stories under the same universe, only with roles that return now and then; still, those isolated fragments come together to expand the novel's grand worldview, covering a multitude of sociological themes.

Yoneda’s translation succeeded in presenting the nuance of linguistic shifts between different sections throughout. She captures the atmosphere, paradoxically, by taking liberties: for example, the titular chapter is translated as "Under the Eye of the Big Bird", from the original 大きな鳥にさらわれないよう, literally "to avoid being swept away by the big bird".

A common complaint is the narrative fragmentation that sets this novel apart, which can be difficult to cope with (as is the "system" of human civilisation in the text). Still, it's a worthy read if you want an avant-garde presentation of what we could become one day.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami, translated by Asa Yoneda – reviewed by Kai Chase

“19, what do you think hate is?”

Hiromi Kawakami’s Under the Eye of the Big Bird is an understated, attentively painted portrait of a very possible near-future. The novel is persistently polyvocal, and its many threads patiently co-exist before they are interwoven in the second half.

The novel is most dazzling in its moments of psychological erosion. Humanity’s defining traits – sex, love, hate – are made strange in a world exhaling its final breath. Its plaintive visions of a dying race offer a chilling read of the present.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird is dreamy, insistent, and unsettling. Voices, both artificial and human, or near-humans, flow seamlessly and indistinctly from one to the other: in a world increasingly dominated by technology and anthropomorphized artificial intelligence, where does the digital end and where do we begin?

A very relevant read in an increasingly complex modern era.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes – reviewed by Amar Lehal

Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection offers a wonderfully sharp commentary on the pervasive anxieties of modern life. The novel keenly observes how ennui manifests itself in our hyper-connected world, dissecting the contemporary obsession with travel and online validation as attempted escape routes from boredom and pessimism. Through the lens of a young expat couple, the omniscient narration maintains a dry, observational tone, creating an interesting distance that allows for a clear-eyed examination of their disconnection and isolation.

Latronico masterfully explores the constant chase for the vibrancy of early days and the struggle to grapple with nostalgia. The narrative subtly unveils the emptiness inherent in trying to curate an illusion of perfection, ultimately suggesting the necessity of making peace with the messy reality of life. The acute fatigue the author generates in readers as they witness this relentless pursuit is vivid, communicating a timely message about the elusive nature of contentment in our relentlessly striving age.

Perfection by Vincenzo Latronico, translated by Sophie Hughes – reviewed by Ginevra Zambardi

Vincenzo Latronico’s Perfection exposes the aesthetically pleasing lives of Anna and Tom, a “creative” couple – who hates being called so – navigating a globalised, gentrified Europe. From Berlin to Lisbon, their Scandinavian-style homes, digital jobs, and “instagrammable” routines reflect a generation that knows images better than reality. But beneath the houseplants and promising ads for renters lies quiet alienation. With chapters named after verb tenses – Present, Imperfect, Remote, Future – the novel mimics the temporal blur of social media scrolling and the fragmentation of identity in the digital age. With surgical descriptive precision and detachment, Latronico offers a mirror to recognise ourselves in: how much of what we call “living” is really performance? Like Sally Rooney and Ottessa Moshfegh, he captures the millennial generational conflicts and zeitgeist, but with a voice all his own. Perfection doesn’t offer solutions, but it lingers in the discomfort of modern life, posing questions we can’t easily scroll past. 

The winner of the International Booker Prize 2025 will be announced on Tuesday 20 May.