"These Are Very Human Books": 2026 Booker Prize Shortlist

The 2026 Booker Prize shortlist was announced on September 22 in London as readers in India stayed up late, wondering if their favourites would find a place on the list. Former Booker winners Douglas Scott and Marlon James have made it to the list—to literally no one’s surprise...Scott is in contention for his finely crafted and acutely observed novel John of John, set in Scotland’s faraway Outer Hebrides and James for his mighty tome, The Disappearers, which some critics have described as a “maximalist banquet” set in Jamaica.

American author Elizabeth Strout is on the shortlist for her eleventh novel, The Things We Never Say. Strout is no stranger to the Booker; she was longlisted in 2016 and shortlisted in both 2022 and 2026.  

British writer M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything, set in a post-apocalyptic world, has sailed through to the shortlist. Harrison is a seasoned science-fiction writer with 13 novels and several short stories to his credit. At 81, he is the oldest on the list.

Poets have plenty of reason to rejoice over this year’s list. British writer Luke Kennard, shortlisted for his campus novel Black Bag and fellow Britisher Rebecca Perry—whose novel May We Feed the King features on the list— are both accomplished poets. Kennard has written three novels previously. May We Feed the King is Perry’s debut novel. It won the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.

I had high hopes of American writer Emma Cline’s Switzy and Turkish-American author Kenan Orhan’s The Renovation being shortlisted. Both are highly memorable reads and linger long after you turn the last page.    

While announcing this year’s six-strong shortlist, poet and Booker Prize judge Raymond Antrobus said, “These books, we truly believe, cannot be replicated by artificial intelligence. These are very human books.” Chair of the jury, classicist Mary Beard, hailed the range of genres and the quirkiness the shortlist embraces. “These novels range from the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic,” she said. Writer and critic Rebecca Liu shared that the judges wanted to build a list that was “full of variety, that had lots of things that were idiosyncratic, that might not be universally loved, that might draw a strong opinion."

The shortlist, drawn from a longlist of 13 titles, will hopefully inspire more readers to dive into these novels in the coming weeks. The Booker winner will be announced on November 9, 2026.