The winner of the Booker Prize 2026 will soon be revealed, with this year’s nominees including previous winner Douglas Stuart.
The Glasgow-born author won the prestigious literary award in 2020 for his debut novel Shuggie Bain, with his new Harris-set work John of John on this year’s six-book strong shortlist.
READ MORE: 'I've been writing this book since I was 18' - Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart on John of John
Another Booker Prize winner to be recognised is Marlon James, for his latest book The Disappearers. The Jamaican writer won the award in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings, and he is among this year’s favourites.
Previously shortlisted author Elizabeth Stroud is also in the running for the 2026 Booker Prize, as are first time nominees Luke Kennard, M. John Harrison, and Rebecca Perry.
The winner of the award will be announced at a ceremony in London this evening (Monday, November 9).
Here are all of the Booker Prize 2026 nominees, what each book is about, and where you can purchase copies.
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1. John of John by Douglas Stuart
“Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades. While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.” | Getty Images
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2. The Disappearers by Marlon James
“The Disappearers is Marlon James’s triumphant return to the Jamaica of A Brief History of Seven Killings – a place of heat and chaos, and of danger for anyone outside the heteronormal. So when eight gay men meet for the first time, in Kingston in 1988, answering the casting call for an openly queer play, they are already taking a big risk. But that is nothing compared to what rains down on them when a mob descends on one of their rehearsals. By the end of this night, one man is dead, all are injured, and two subsequently disappear. As the survivors heal, each man finds he must confront the bigotry and homophobia that the attack laid bare. Some try to forget; some embrace their rage; and some simply vanish – but all are forever scarred. As one of the victims puts it, ‘there’s a difference between when something ends and when something stops’. And this story won’t stop until both the disappearers and the perpetrators have been tracked, along trails both hot and cold, and an ending reached.” | Getty Images
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3. The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
“Artie Dam is a man with a secret. He spends his days teaching history to high schoolers, expanding their young minds, correcting their casual cruelties, and lending a kind word to those who need it most. He goes to holiday parties with his wife of three decades, makes small talk with neighbours, and, on weekends, takes his sailboat out on the beautiful Massachusetts Bay. He is, by all appearances, present and alive. But inside, Artie is plagued by feelings of isolation. He looks out at a world gone mad—at himself and the people around him—and turns a question over and over in his mind: how is it that we know so little about one another, even those closest to us? And then, one day, Artie learns that life has been keeping a secret from him, one that threatens to upend his entire world. Once he learns it, he is forced to chart a new course, to reconsider the relationships he holds most dear—and to make peace with the mysteries at the heart of our existence.” | Getty Images
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4. Black Bag by Luke Kennard
“A penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr Blend’s students react to someone zipped into on oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences. A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own, in particular can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag? Meanwhile, the actor’s childhood friend and flatmate forms a vision for monetising this new situation… 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.” | Getty Images