Jarvis Cocker
Booker Prize 2026 judge
- Prizes judged
Jarvis Cocker is a musician and broadcaster from the north of England
Cocker formed the band Pulp in 1978, whilst at secondary school. The band went on to become one of the most successful UK music groups of the 1990s.
Between 2009 and 2017 he presented the BBC Radio 6 Music programme Jarvis Cocker’s Sunday Service, as well as the ongoing, award-winning BBC Radio 4 documentary series Wireless Nights. He has interviewed authors including Salman Rushdie, Edna O’Brien, Nick Hornby and Miranda July. He was an editor-at-large at Faber between 2012 and 2014.
Cocker has honorary doctorates from both Sheffield Hallam University and Central Saint Martin’s School of Art (which he attended from 1988 to 1991).
His lyric collection Mother, Brother, Lover was published by Faber in 2011. Good Pop, Bad Pop, his first work of long-form prose, was published by Jonathan Cape in 2022.
Cocker appeared in a Booker Prize 2022 shortlist film, performing an extract from Treacle Walker by Alan Garner.
Judge photo © Tom Jackson