Booker Prize 2026 longlist announced

The longlist for the 2026 Booker Prize, worth £50,000, has been announced.

The 13 longlisted books are:

• The Shadow of the Object (Chloe Aridjis, Chatto & Windus)
• Switzy (Emma Cline, Chatto & Windus) (forthcoming)
• Helen of Nowhere (Makenna Goodman, Fitzcarraldo)
• The End of Everything (M John Harrison, Profile Books) (forthcoming)
• The Disappearers (Marlon James, Hamish Hamilton) (forthcoming)
• Black Bag (Luke Kennard, John Murray Press)
• The Renovation (Kenan Orhan, Hamish Hamilton)
• May We Feed the King (Rebecca Perry, Granta)
• The Palm House (Gwendoline Riley, Picador)
• The Things We Never Say (Elizabeth Strout, Viking)
• John of John (Douglas Stuart, Picador)
• All Them Dogs (Djamel White, John Murray)
• The Vivisectors (Missouri Williams, 4th Estate) (forthcoming).

Selected from 163 submissions, the longlist features authors representing 7 countries: Jamaica, Mexico, Turkey, England, Scotland, Ireland and the United States.

Previous winners Douglas Stuart (who won with Shuggie Bain in 2020) and Marlon James (who won with A Brief History of Seven Killings in 2015) are on the 2026 longlist. The list also features 3 debut novelists: Kenan Orhan, Rebecca Perry and Djamel White.

Booker Prize 2026 chair of judges Mary Beard said: “Great books have never been written to a single formula. We are confident that our longlist of books has something for everyone.”

“Books are not mirrors,” Beard added. “They don’t simply reflect ourselves back to us. One of the many important things about fiction is that it helps us see what it might be like not to be us, to begin to understand the perspectives of others, and to imagine what it might be like to see the world differently. Great books are not cosy. In their various ways, the novels we have chosen are (we hope) dynamite.”

The shortlist will be announced on 22 September.

David Szalay won the 2025 Booker Prize for Flesh (Jonathan Cape).

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