Two former Booker Prize winners, Douglas Stuart and Marlon James, landed on the 2026 longlist announced on 28 July, leading a selection of 13 novels drawn from 163 submitted books.

Stuart, who won in 2020 for his debut Shuggie Bain, was longlisted for his third novel, John of John. James, the 2015 winner for A Brief History of Seven Killings, made the list with his fifth, The Disappearers, which centres on a homophobic mob attack in 1980s Jamaica and is scheduled for publication in September 2026. Both now have a shot at joining the very small club of two-time Booker winners — only four authors have done it: JM Coetzee, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood.

The 2026 panel was chaired by the classicist Mary Beard, with the musician Jarvis Cocker, the poet Raymond Antrobus and the critic Rebecca Liu serving alongside her. From 163 submissions, the judges settled on a longlist that the Booker Prize Foundation's chief executive, Gaby Wood, said "rewards risk" (The Guardian).

Elizabeth Strout earned her third Booker nomination, for her 11th novel, The Things We Never Say. She was previously longlisted in 2016 for My Name Is Lucy Barton and shortlisted in 2022 for Oh William! At 81, M John Harrison became the oldest author on the list with The End of Everything. Harrison served as a Booker judge himself in 2022. Margaret Atwood remains the oldest recipient of the prize to date, having jointly won in 2019 at 79.

Three debut novelists made the cut: Kenan Orhan, a Turkish-American writer, for The Renovation; Rebecca Perry; and Djamel White, who at 28 is the youngest author on the list and the only Irish writer represented. White's All Them Dogs is set in west Dublin. Chloe Aridjis, who is Mexican-British, was longlisted for The Shadow of the Object.

Ten of the 13 writers are appearing on a Booker longlist for the first time. The list spans seven nationalities across three continents, though almost half the authors are from the UK.

The Booker Prize has been awarded annually since 1969, when it was founded to stimulate the reading and discussion of contemporary fiction. It was originally backed by Booker McConnell, a conglomerate with deep roots in Guyana, and its early history is tangled with the literary estate of Ian Fleming — whose royalties the company partly acquired. In 2014, the prize was opened to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK or Ireland, which is how American authors like Stuart and Strout now qualify.

The shortlist of six novels will be announced on 22 September 2026, with the winner to follow later in the autumn.