The winner of the 2026 Booker Prize will be announced on Monday, November 9, at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in the City of London. The judging panel, chaired by Mary Beard, will choose from six novels — and for the first time in several years, the list includes two previous winners.
The shortlist
- The End of Everything — M. John Harrison
- The Disappearers — Marlon James
- Black Bag — Luke Kennard
- May We Feed the King — Rebecca Perry
- The Things We Never Say — Elizabeth Strout
- John of John — Douglas Stuart
The case for each book
Douglas Stuart — John of John
Stuart won in 2020 with Shuggie Bain. His story of a young art graduate returning to a strict religious home on the Isle of Harris has the emotional intensity that made his debut a phenomenon. A win would make him only the latest in a very small club of double Booker winners.
Marlon James — The Disappearers
James won in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings. His return to late-20th-century Jamaica, examining the killing of a gay actor and its aftermath, is ambitious and politically charged.
Elizabeth Strout — The Things We Never Say
The Pulitzer Prize-winning American author has been shortlisted before. Her portrait of a teacher quietly overtaken by isolation is classic Strout: understated, precise and devastating.
M. John Harrison — The End of Everything
A veteran of speculative fiction, Harrison offers a post-apocalyptic Kent coast and an alien invasion — a genre-bending choice that would signal a jury willing to take risks.
Luke Kennard — Black Bag
The most comic book on the list, about an actor spending a university term inside a large black bag for a psychology experiment, could appeal to judges looking for originality.
Rebecca Perry — May We Feed the King
Perry’s dual-timeline novel, moving between a medieval court and a modern palace curator, rewards close reading and has been praised for its formal invention.
Booker juries love to surprise. A list this varied gives Mary Beard’s panel every opportunity to do so.
The prize
The winner receives £50,000, and each shortlisted author receives £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book. Sales typically surge after the announcement. We will report the winner in our Entertainment section.