The six novelists shortlisted for the Booker Prize read from and discuss their books at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the evening before the winner is named.
The six novelists shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026 read from their books at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on the South Bank on Sunday 8 November 2026. The novelist Sara Collins hosts the evening.
The Booker Prize has rewarded a single work of fiction for more than 55 years. This year’s winner receives £50,000.
The list sets Elizabeth Strout, who won the Pulitzer Prize for Olive Kitteridge, beside two past Booker winners. Douglas Stuart won in 2020 with Shuggie Bain, and Marlon James in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings.
Their shortlisted novels are Strout’s The Things We Never Say, Stuart’s John of John and James’s The Disappearers. M John Harrison’s The End of Everything, Luke Kennard’s Black Bag and Rebecca Perry’s May We Feed the King complete the six.
The readings are the one evening each year when all six authors share a stage before the result is known. The winner is announced the following night, Monday 9 November, at Old Billingsgate.
Collins judged the prize in 2024. Her first novel, The Confessions of Frannie Langton, won the Costa First Novel Award in 2019, and she also works as a critic, screenwriter and broadcaster.