Four male writers and two women writers feature on the 2026 Booker Prize shortlist.
The shortlisted novels mirror the anxieties about masculinity in a hypercapitalist world.
The male characters in these novel are nor infallible, as men are traditionally expected to be.
In Luke Kennard’s darkly comedic Black Bag, a struggling actor, a sardonic millennial, takes on a strange acting job advertised by a university professor. He says yes to zipping himself up in a black bag and attending/being a silent presence at the professor’s lectures for a term in order the help him conduct a psychological experiment that will measure the human response to the ‘mere-exposure’ effect. Much insight follows. This is a funny, bittersweet, razor-sharp story about being a man in our hyper-capitalist world; about love, survival, the state of the arts in the midst of the artificial-intelligence rampage; about academia and the bubble it builds; about the darkness of the manosphere, and the internet which urges us to monitise every single human feeling and experience.
In M. John Harrison’s post-apocalyptic fictional scenario, the hero of The End of Everything is trying to his best to survive in Britain, under attack from unnamed entities (AI gone wild? Your guess is as good as mine…)
In Marlon James’ novel The Disappearers young men in 20th-century Jamaica are subjected to intense homophobia and violence. Douglas Stuart’s John of John, set in the farflung Outer Hebrides revolves around a father and son who are assigned strictly gendered roles by their community; and the struggles of both men—who are secretly gay— in a time and place which frowns on same-sex desire.
In Rebecca Perry’s May We Feed the King, a curator is fascinated by a historical figure, a king who never hungered for power during his reign. He doesn’t fit into the traditional mould of a ruler or an aggressive male strongman and that places him at risk in a world where men are expected to conform to such stereotypes.
The hero of Elizabeth Strout’s 11th novel, The Things We Never Say, is a 57-year-old high school teacher who lives in Trump’s America and struggles to cope with its daily cruelties. He teaches history and also imparts lessons on basic human decency and kinder ways of being to his students. His core tenets; compassion, tolerance, community values; are in short supply in a deeply polarised society.
These characters are all trying to finding their way in a confusing world. Traditional gender roles weigh heavily on them. They long to break free of stereotypes and have moments of insight that help them understand their vulnerabilities. They are not infallible, as men are expected to be. They flail around in troubled waters, as all humans do; hoping to make it to the shore, hoping to make meaningful connections with others on the way.
(The Booker winner will be announced on November 9, 2026. The winning author will be awarded a trophy and £50,000 in prize money.)
