2026 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction (longlist)
2025 International Booker Prize (longlist)
LONGLISTED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2025
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she posts outrageous stories on an erotica website. One day, a new male carer reveals he has read it all – the sex, the provocation, the dirt. Her response? An indecent proposal…
Written by the first disabled author to win Japan’s most prestigious literary award and acclaimed instantly as one of the most important Japanese novels of the twenty-first century, Hunchback is an extraordinary, thrilling glimpse into the desire and darkness of a woman placed at humanity’s edge.
'A must-read debut. Funny and frank, this book lingers in the mind long after you turn the final page' BBC Books of 2025
Hunchback is one of the boldest and most unusual books to emerge from a mainstream publisher in years. It's a brilliant, riveting book that lets us tune into the voices we have long kept suppressed. Sunday Times
‘Uproariously funny, unflinching, and merciless’ Mariana Enriquez, author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
‘Filled with unforgettable insight’ Sakaya Murata, author of Convenience Store Woman
Genre: Literary Fiction
Born with a congenital muscle disorder, Shaka Isawa has severe spine curvature and uses an electric wheelchair and ventilator. Within the limits of her care home, her life is lived online: she studies, she tweets indignantly, she posts outrageous stories on an erotica website. One day, a new male carer reveals he has read it all – the sex, the provocation, the dirt. Her response? An indecent proposal…
Written by the first disabled author to win Japan’s most prestigious literary award and acclaimed instantly as one of the most important Japanese novels of the twenty-first century, Hunchback is an extraordinary, thrilling glimpse into the desire and darkness of a woman placed at humanity’s edge.
'A must-read debut. Funny and frank, this book lingers in the mind long after you turn the final page' BBC Books of 2025
Hunchback is one of the boldest and most unusual books to emerge from a mainstream publisher in years. It's a brilliant, riveting book that lets us tune into the voices we have long kept suppressed. Sunday Times
‘Uproariously funny, unflinching, and merciless’ Mariana Enriquez, author of The Dangers of Smoking in Bed
‘Filled with unforgettable insight’ Sakaya Murata, author of Convenience Store Woman
Genre: Literary Fiction
Praise for this book
"A forceful and original novel which will leave no reader unchanged." - Nicola Dinan
"A deadpan account of living in a body at war with itself, but this battle does not ask for pity, nor is this narrative, or the body at its center, fragile: It's full of a force that able bodies can't fully grasp,written in a language that talks both clinically and sexually. It's also uproariously funny, unflinching, and merciless." - Mariana Enríquez
"An absolutely incredible portrait of one woman's life and body - I couldn't put it down. You won't be able to, either." - Sarah Rose Etter
"Not only a major achievement in disability literature but great literature, period. It is subversive, raunchy, hilarious, raw, tough, yearning, and important. I want everyone to read this book so they can know that disabled people live, lust, stink, are messy, are perfect, are human." - Johanna Hedva
"Defiant, subversive, sexy, dark, and full of originality, Hunchback breaks like a shard of lightning through a complacent, oppressive world." - Seán Hewitt
"Propulsive, sexy, and distilled, Hunchback is the novel on disability and desire I've been waiting for. . . . as narratively gripping as it is explosively insightful." - Daisy Lafarge
"This genre-defying novel plunges us into a world that is so surreal and bizarre and captivating. Filled with dark humor and existential dread, this is a wild ride that teeters on the memorable edge of the absurd." - Weike Wang
"A deadpan account of living in a body at war with itself, but this battle does not ask for pity, nor is this narrative, or the body at its center, fragile: It's full of a force that able bodies can't fully grasp,written in a language that talks both clinically and sexually. It's also uproariously funny, unflinching, and merciless." - Mariana Enríquez
"An absolutely incredible portrait of one woman's life and body - I couldn't put it down. You won't be able to, either." - Sarah Rose Etter
"Not only a major achievement in disability literature but great literature, period. It is subversive, raunchy, hilarious, raw, tough, yearning, and important. I want everyone to read this book so they can know that disabled people live, lust, stink, are messy, are perfect, are human." - Johanna Hedva
"Defiant, subversive, sexy, dark, and full of originality, Hunchback breaks like a shard of lightning through a complacent, oppressive world." - Seán Hewitt
"Propulsive, sexy, and distilled, Hunchback is the novel on disability and desire I've been waiting for. . . . as narratively gripping as it is explosively insightful." - Daisy Lafarge
"This genre-defying novel plunges us into a world that is so surreal and bizarre and captivating. Filled with dark humor and existential dread, this is a wild ride that teeters on the memorable edge of the absurd." - Weike Wang
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Used availability for Saou Ichikawa's Hunchback