The Booker Prize narrowed its 2026 longlist of 13 novels down to a six-book shortlist on September 22, picking two past winners, a previous nominee and three writers new to the list this year. The shortlist, drawn from 163 submitted novels, will be cut to a single winner at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London on November 9.
Two Past Winners, Back in Contention
The six finalists are M. John Harrison's "The End of Everything," Marlon James's "The Disappearers," Luke Kennard's "Black Bag," Rebecca Perry's "May We Feed the King," Elizabeth Strout's "The Things We Never Say" and Douglas Stuart's "John of John." James won the prize in 2015 for "A Brief History of Seven Killings," and Stuart won in 2020 for his debut novel, "Shuggie Bain." Strout was previously shortlisted in 2022 for "Oh William!," while Harrison, Kennard and Perry are new to a Booker shortlist this year.
Coverage of the announcement grouped the six books loosely around themes of isolation, identity and survival, with the Booker Prize's own site noting the list spans characters from different countries and different centuries. Perry, a poet, is the only first-time Booker nominee among the six finalists.
The judging panel is chaired by classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard, alongside poet Raymond Antrobus, musician and writer Jarvis Cocker, critic Rebecca Liu and novelist Patricia Lockwood. Beard summed up the range of the finalists in a statement released alongside the list.
"From the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic."
Mary Beard, chair of the 2026 Booker Prize judges
She also described the judges' final deliberation as a meeting "none of the judges is likely to forget."
The winner receives £50,000, with each of the other five shortlisted writers awarded £2,500. The announcement prompted some grumbling in Ireland, where no Irish novelist made the final cut, despite Irish writers having featured on the longer list released in July.
The shortlist is separate from the International Booker Prize, which honors fiction translated into English and is chaired this year by writer Natasha Brown with its own, already-announced shortlist. Bookmakers and critics will spend the next month handicapping the six contenders before judges reconvene in November to pick a winner.
