The Booker Prize is one of the most respected literary awards in the industry and the 2026 shortlist has now been confirmed, including two past winners.

Last year, British-Hungarian author David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Prize for his novel Flesh, a book championed by pop singer Dua Lipa and also received praise from rapper Stormzy.

The 2026 shortlist is comprised of six books made up of four authors from the UK, a debut novelist, and a comic novel. The list also includes an 81-year-old author, M John Harrison, who, if he were to be successful, would become the oldest winner in the prize’s history.

Two authors that made the cut this year are previous winners; Marlon James won in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings and Douglas Stuart with Shuggie Bain in 2020.

To be eligible for the prize, the books must be written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

The six shortlisted Booker Prize 2026 books are:

• 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
• John of John by Douglas Stuart

Get to know the six books below, and find out more about the judges' comments by visiting the Booker Prize website.

The End of Everything by M John Harrison

What is The End of Everything about? Phillip Tennent makes his living at the tideline, collecting artefacts that wash up from the Channel. It's been years since the crisis that changed everything, but its exact nature remains obscured. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, Europe has been mislaid. It feels like the end.

Now Phillip has fished out of the water an object he can’t keep. A creature that keeps changing. An artefact he must take inland, before it destroys everything he thinks he knows.

What did the judges say about The End of Everything? "The End of Everything can be read as a thriller, a mystery, a satire, a dystopia, a road novel, a work of realism. The landscape may be bleak, the catastrophe may be immersive, yet there still were moments we found ourselves laughing aloud."

The Disappearers by Marlon James

What is The Disappearers about? In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. The men are strangers to one another and each has a different reason for being involved. But they all share one inescapable truth: All of them are gay, and all of them must contend with the dangers that such a truth lays bare.

One night a mob savagely attacks them, killing one of the men. For the survivors, their recovery is as much emotional as it is physical: As their bodies heal, each man must grapple with the violence, the hatred, and the rage that the attack made plain. Some try to ignore what the attack has unearthed, while others double down on retribution.

What did the judges say about The Disappearers? "A Jamaican epic from one of the most impactful Caribbean novelists today; readers will love the shifting register of the dialogue and poetic phrasings, often pierced through with sharp, double-edged humour."

Black Bag by Luke Kennard

What is Black Bag about? A penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr Blend's students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures?

The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own, in particular - can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag? Meanwhile, the actor's childhood friend and flatmate forms a vision for monetising this new situation…

What did the judges say about Black Bag? "In a wonderfully quirky campus novel, Kennard combines an absurd experiment with a moving story about human frailty, passion, confusion, and identity. There’s something for everyone here."

May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

What is May We Feed the King about? She is a curator, who spends her time dressing the rooms of historic buildings to bring them to life. But in the lush private quarters of a medieval palace, she finds herself so transfixed by the reign of an almost-forgotten King that the edges of her life begin to blur.

He is a reluctant ruler with no hunger for power, rushed to the throne after the untimely deaths of his older brothers. But it isn't long before whispers begin to fly around the court. And with the growing belief that the King is not fit for the throne comes the idea that another might rule in his stead.

What did the judges say about May We Feed the King? "An affecting and lush jewel of a novel that moves between our present-day world to a medieval court and unsettles the idea that there’s ever one universal historical truth."

The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

What is The Things We Never Say about? Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad - at himself and the people around him - and turns a question over and over in his mind: How is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us?

And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear - and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.

What did the judges say about The Things We Never Say? "A novel that engages with the deeply divisive politics of present-day America, without itself becoming divisive. This is the kind of book we need now: a calm antidote to contemporary events."

John of John by Douglas Stuart

What is John of John about? Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: His father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son's long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.

What did the judges say about John of John? "A rich and moving novel about a father and son who live on a remote Scottish island in the 1990s, where small-town secrets and buried shame reverberate to surprising, devastating and even joyous effect."

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