Vanavond is de shortlist voor Booker Prize 2026 bekendgemaakt.

The End of Everything – M. John Harrison (Serpent’s Tail)
The Disappearers – Marlon James (Hamish Hamilton)
Black Bag – Luke Kennard (John Murray)
May We Feed the King – Rebecca Perry (Granta)
The Things We Never Say – Elizabeth Strout (Viking)
John of John – Douglas Stuart (Picador)

Juryvoorzitter Mary Beard over de keuze:

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. 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. These novels range from the hilarious to the discomfiting, 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.  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. 

De jury bestaat dit jaar uit Mary Beard, Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu en Patricia Lockwood. 9 november volgt de bekendmaking van de winnaar.

Afbeelding: screenshot YouTube