The Booker Prize, awarded for fiction in English since 1969, names its 2026 winner at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate on Monday 9 November, chaired by Mary Beard.
The Booker Prize, awarded for fiction in English since 1969, names its 2026 winner at Old Billingsgate in the City of London on Monday 9 November 2026. Mary Beard chairs the jury.
The Booker Prize Foundation, a charity, has run the prize since 2002. Since 2014 it has been open to any novel written in English and published in Britain, rather than to Commonwealth and Irish writers alone.
A panel of five judges reads the year’s submitted fiction from scratch each time, with no continuity from year to year. The judges are appointed for one year, from criticism, writing, publishing and beyond.
A place on the shortlist alone multiplies a novel’s sales, and the winner’s book stays in print for decades. The winner receives £50,000 and each shortlisted author £2,500. The six shortlisted authors dine in the room before the winner is announced.
Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood sit beside her on the 2026 jury.
The ceremony is invitation only. The public saw the shortlist announced at the Southbank Centre on 22 September, after shortlist readings at the Queen Elizabeth Hall the night before.