Booker 2026: two former winners, one 81-year-old first-timer, and six weeks of argument
The shortlist of six was announced at the Southbank Centre. The winner is named on 9 November.
The 2026 Booker Prize shortlist, announced on 22 September at the Southbank Centre in London, is a list built for argument: two former winners, a previous shortlistee, and three authors new to the prize, chosen from 163 submissions.
The six: The End of Everything by M. John Harrison; The Disappearers by Marlon James; Black Bag by Luke Kennard; May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry; The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout; and John of John by Douglas Stuart.
Marlon James won in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings; Douglas Stuart won in 2020 with Shuggie Bain. Either could join the small club of double winners. M. John Harrison, 81 and shortlisted for the first time, would be the oldest winner in the prize's history; the record is held by Margaret Atwood, who won at 79.
Moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying and hopeful.The Booker Prize judges
The judges, chaired by Mary Beard with Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood, read everything published in the UK and Ireland between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026, longlisting 13 in July before settling on six.
The jury's statement promises range: spanning dystopian fiction to contemporary realism, campus satire to historical fiction, the shortlisted books explore what it means to be human in an ever-changing world. The books are, the judges say, moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying and hopeful.
The ceremony is at Old Billingsgate on 9 November. The winner takes 50,000 pounds; each shortlisted author receives 2,500. Last year David Szalay won for Flesh.
The Booker matters because it still moves books: a shortlisting transforms sales, and a win transforms a career. For six weeks, the literary conversation has its agenda. The only certainty is that someone will call it the wrong six.
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