British writers have dominated this year’s Booker Prize shortlist, securing four of the six final spots in line for the prestigious award.
The selection marks a shift from recent years, when American authors featured more prominently among the finalists.
Last year, three US writers made the shortlist, though Hungarian-British novelist David Szalay ultimately took home the £50,000 prize for his novel Flesh.
This time, British authors make up two thirds of the lineup for the literary prize, now in its 57th year.
The two non-British contenders, as announced at London’s Southbank Centre on Tuesday evening, are American author Elizabeth Strout and Jamaican writer Marlon James.
At 81, M John Harrison would become the Booker’s oldest ever winner should his science fiction novel The End Of Everything prevail.
Rebecca Perry, a former trampolinist, earned her place with debut novel May We Feed The King, a work of historical fiction.
Luke Kennard’s Black Bag, a satirical novel set on a university campus, also made the cut.
British writers have dominated this year’s Booker Prize shortlist, securing four of the six final spots
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BOOKER PRIZE
Douglas Stuart, who won the Booker in 2020, returns to the shortlist with John of John.
Ms Strout’s The Things We Never Say and Mr James’s The Disappearers round out the six titles competing for the prize.
The judging panel was chaired by Dame Mary Beard and included Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and author Patricia Lockwood.
“We did not start out with a checklist of the different types of book we wanted to see represented in the final six, or the kinds of authors or subject matter,” said Dame Mary.
BRITISH SUCCESS – READ MORE:
Panel chairwoman Dame Mary Beard said the final six novels ranged from ‘the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic’
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“But when we looked at the lineup of our shortlist, neatly propped up against one another, almost glowing, we were happy that we had showcased many of the strengths of contemporary English language fiction.”
She described the selected novels as ranging from “the hilarious to the discomfiting” and “the frighteningly strange to the alarmingly domestic”.
Though the prize was originally only open to writers from the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe, the Booker Prize expanded its eligibility in 2013 to include any English-language novel published in the UK and Ireland.
American authors have since featured heavily, dominating shortlists in 2020, 2021 and again last year.
Jarvis Cocker said he was surprised four men made the final six after it took jurors a while to find a novel ‘written by a man that seemed good’
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This year’s selection is notable for its gender split, with only two women among the six finalists.
It is just the second occasion in a decade that male authors have outnumbered their female counterparts on the shortlist.
Jarvis Cocker said jurors had made it a long way into reading of this year’s 163 submitted novels before they found one “written by a man that seemed good”.
He said he was surprised that four men had, in the end, been shortlisted for the prize alongside just two women.
The winner will be revealed on November 9 at a ceremony held at Old Billingsgate in London.
The 2026 Booker Prize shortlist in full:
- 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.
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