Read extracts from the Booker Prize 2026 shortlist

Published: September 22, 2026

The Booker Prize 2026 shortlisted novels range from ‘the hilarious to the discomfiting, from the powerfully shocking to the intriguingly understated’

The shortlisted books transport readers from the barren hillsides of the Outer Hebrides to the Kent coast in a post-apocalyptic Britain, from an unnamed medieval court to the inside of a black bag in an experiment during university psychology lectures, from Kingston, Jamaica in the late 1980s, to coastal Massachusetts in the run-up to the 2024 US election.

Mary Beard, Chair of the Booker Prize 2026 judges, said: ‘This is writing at its best. There’s plenty to enjoy, some blissful escapism and prose to die for (‘I just wish I could have written that’ kept going through my mind). But there is also plenty here to change the way we see the world, to surprise us and to challenge our certainties.

The shortlisted 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

You can read an extract from all the books on the shortlist here. The winning book will be announced on Monday, 9 November 2026, at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London.

An extract from The End of Everything by M. John Harrison

A slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding from the acknowledged master of science fiction

An extract from The Disappearers by Marlon James

The Disappearers is both a dramatic page-turner and an unflinching exploration of queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s

An extract from Black Bag by Luke Kennard

A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane

An extract from May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry

Laced with desire and longing, May We Feed the King is a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling: on what makes a King ‘Great’, and a life meaningful

An extract from The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

With exquisite prose and profound insight, Elizabeth Strout captures the way grief reverberates through decades, the comfort found in deep friendships and the freedom that comes when we break free of our secrets

An extract from John of John by Douglas Stuart

John of John is the heartbreaking story of a young man’s return home and how the bonds of family life are torn by the weight of expectation

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