Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist: Six Books & Winner Date

The Booker Prize 2026 shortlist is six novels chosen from a 13-book longlist and 163 submissions, and the winner will be announced on Monday 9 November 2026 at Old Billingsgate in London. The list includes two previous winners, Marlon James and Douglas Stuart, three-time nominee Elizabeth Strout, and three writers new to the shortlist. The winner takes £50,000; each shortlisted author receives £2,500. Here is the full list, the judges, the key dates and how to watch from India.

Booker Prize 2026 shortlist: the six books

According to the Booker Prize Foundation:

- The End of Everything by M. John Harrison: described by the Foundation as "a slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding from the acknowledged master of science fiction".

- The Disappearers by Marlon James: "a deeply human story of men who must make compromises to survive what the society they live in demands". James won the Booker in 2015.

- Black Bag by Luke Kennard: a "warped campus novel" about an out-of-work actor paid to attend lectures zipped inside a black leather bag for a psychology experiment.

- May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry: one of three books on the list by writers making their first Booker shortlist appearance.

- The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout: in the Foundation's words, a novel about "the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets".

- John of John by Douglas Stuart: "the heartbreaking story of a young man's return home and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation". Stuart won in 2020.

The Foundation says the shortlisted authors represent England, Scotland, Jamaica and the USA.

What ties the shortlist together

Booker Prize Foundation chief executive Gaby Wood says that across the six books "we find forms of isolation: relationships breaking down or withheld, people harbouring secrets or pain". The Foundation's summary of the six books moves from a beachcomber on the Kent coast to a reluctant monarch in a medieval court, a son returning to a Calvinist island community in the Outer Hebrides, a teacher in coastal Massachusetts hiding a secret, and a survivor of a homophobic attack in 1980s Kingston, Jamaica. The genres run from dystopian fiction to contemporary realism, campus satire and historical fiction.

Who are the Booker Prize 2026 judges?

The panel is chaired by classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard, with poet Raymond Antrobus, Pulp frontman and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker, Guardian critic and editor Rebecca Liu, and Booker-shortlisted novelist Patricia Lockwood. Beard said the books range "from the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic".

Booker Prize 2026 key dates

- Longlist: Tuesday 28 July 2026

- Shortlist: Tuesday 22 September 2026, Southbank Centre, London

- Shortlist readings: Sunday 8 November 2026, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre

- Winner: Monday 9 November 2026, private ceremony at Old Billingsgate, London

Which book should you read first?

If you want a fast way in, pick by mood. Strout and Stuart offer close family and friendship stories; Kennard is the comic, absurd choice; Harrison's post-apocalyptic satire is the speculative pick; James writes about survival under a demanding society. Gaby Wood's own advice is that each book may suit "a different state of mind".

This piece seeds our new Books and literary prizes cluster on The Sunday Profile; we will update it with the winner on 9 November.

Sources

The Booker Prizes, "The Booker Prize 2026" shortlist page and judges' statements; The Booker Prizes, events and key dates page; The Booker Prizes, "Get to know the authors shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026" (22 Sept 2026).