Today, the Booker Prize Foundation announced the six books on the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist, whittled down from the “Booker’s Dozen” announced in July. The Booker is the UK’s most prestigious literary prize, which celebrates longform fiction written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland (this year, between October 2025 and September 2026).  Each of the below shortlisted authors will receive £2,500; the winner will take home £50,000, along with plenty of book sales and bragging rights.

“We did not start out with a checklist of the different types of book we wanted to see represented in the final six, or the kinds of authors or subject matter,” said Mary Beard, Chair of the Booker Prize 2026 judges, in the announcement.

But when we looked at the lineup of our shortlist, neatly propped up against one another, almost glowing, we were happy that we had showcased many of the strengths of contemporary English language fiction. These novels range from the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic, from the powerfully shocking to the intriguingly understated. In them, we meet characters from different countries and different centuries, created by authors 40 years apart, new talent and well-known favourites.

Here’s the shortlist:

M. John Harrison, The End of Everything

Marlon James, The Disappearers

Luke Kennard, Black Bag

Rebecca Perry, May We Feed the King

Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say 

Douglas Stuart, John of John

This year’s judges are Mary Beard (Chair), Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu, and Patricia Lockwood. The winner will be announced in a ceremony on November 9.