Booker Prize 2026: Finalists Shortlist Revealed

We are entering the decisive phase of one of the world’s most important and coveted international literary prizes. For the second year in a row, moreover, the Booker Prize shortlist was announced during a public event at the Southbank Centre in London, in the presence of the jury chair Mary Beard and the other jurors (Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood).

The Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist

Here are the 6 Booker Prize 2026 finalists, which are:

• The End of Everything by M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail);
• The Disappearers by Marlon James (Hamish Hamilton) – in Italy via NN in autumn 2027;
• Black Bag by Luke Kennard (John Murray);
• May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry (Granta);
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout (Viking) – to be published by Einaudi;
• John of John by Douglas Stuart (Picador) – in Italy with Mondadori;

“These novels range from the hilarious to the disconcerting, from the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic, from the powerfully shocking to the intriguingly understated. In them, we meet characters from different countries and different centuries, created by authors 40 years apart, new talent and well-known favourites”, reads the prize’s official newsletter about the finalists.

Thus the following titles were left off the shortlist:

• The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis (Chatto & Windus);
• Switzy by Emma Cline (Chatto & Windus);
• Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman (Fitzcarraldo Editions);
• The Renovation by Kenan Orhan (Hamish Hamilton);
• The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley (Picador);
• All Them Dogs by Djamel White (John Murray);
• The Vivisectors by (4th Estate) – in Italy via NN in spring 2027.