Ottawa: Indian-origin Canadian writer and translator Padma Viswanathan has been longlisted for the prestigious International Booker Prize 2026 for her English translation of Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia’s novel “On Earth As It Is Beneath".
The name was announced from a longlist of 13 books of translators vying for the £50,000 (approximately Rs 61 lakh) prize. The shortlist of six books will be announced on March 31 and the winner’s name will be revealed at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London on May 19.
Published by Edinburgh-based Charco Press in 2025, the book, “On Earth As It Is Beneath", is based on a remote penal colony built on land where enslaved people were once tortured and murdered.
The novel has been described by the International Booker Prize 2026 judging panel as “a stark, unsettling exploration of power, violence, destruction and institutional corruption that will linger with readers long after the final page".
Viswanathan is a professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, where she is Founding Director of the Arkansas International Writer-at-Risk Residency Program. Her debut novel, “The Toss of a Lemon", was inspired by her family history. It was based on three generations of a Brahmin family through 60 years of social and political change in South India.
