Booker 2026 Shortlist Names Six Finalists — SkimNews
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- The 2026 Booker Prize shortlist was unveiled at London's Southbank Centre by a five-person judging panel including Jarvis Cocker, Mary Beard, Patricia Lockwood, Raymond Antrobus, and the Guardian's Rebecca Liu.
- The six shortlisted novels are "The End of Everything" by M John Harrison (Serpent's Tail), "The Disappearers" by Marlon James (Hamish Hamilton), "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), and "John of John" by Douglas Stuart (Picador).
- The winner will be announced on 9 November 2026 at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London.
- Justine Jordan, the Guardian's fiction editor and a 2024 Booker judge, defended recent winners "Orbital" and "Flesh" against a reader's criticism that they were slight, calling "Orbital" "a Tardis of a book, a lot bigger on the inside."
- Charlotte Northedge defined literary fiction as novels with ambitions beyond genre categories, citing shortlisted "The End of Everything" as a sci-fi, dystopian and literary hybrid that deserved a standalone review rather than a genre roundup.
- Liese Spencer noted judges read 163 novels in 180 days, and recalled the 2019 controversy when judges split the prize between Bernardine Evaristo and Margaret Atwood, with Atwood later saying she "kinda don't need the attention."
Why it matters: A Booker win delivers career-defining sales boosts, making the 9 November ceremony a pivotal moment for these six authors. It also illuminates the grueling selection process: five judges reading 163 novels in 180 days, with 2024 judge Justine Jordan revealing she read 150 books consecutively by putting her phone in another room.
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