Marlon James, Douglas Stuart and Elizabeth Strout Named Booker Prize Semifinalists

LONDON — Past Booker Prize winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart are in the running for the award again, joining Pulitzer Prize laureate Elizabeth Strout on a 13-book longlist for the 2026 edition announced Tuesday.

Judges read 163 novels to arrive at the semifinalists for the 50,000-pound (about $66,000) prize. Historian Mary Beard, who chairs the judging panel, described the selection as literary "dynamite."

The list includes James' "The Disappearers," about a group of gay men in a hostile 1980s Jamaica; Stuart's "John of John," a story of father-son secrets on a remote Scottish island; and Strout's small-town tale "The Things We Never Say."

James won the Booker in 2015 for "A Brief History of Seven Killings," and Stuart won in 2020 for "Shuggie Bain." Strout's "Oh William!" was a finalist in 2022, and she won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2009 for "Olive Kitteridge."

They sit alongside lesser-known names on a longlist featuring authors with roots in Britain, Ireland, Jamaica, Mexico, Turkey and the United States.

Three are debut novelists: Turkish American writer Kenan Orhan for the family history "The Renovation"; British author Rebecca Perry for "May We Feed the King," which moves from the medieval era to the present; and Ireland's Djamel White for "All Them Dogs," a thriller set in the Dublin underworld.

White, 28, is the youngest author in contention. The oldest is M. John Harrison, 81, whose postapocalyptic "The End of Everything" is a rare science fiction novel to reach the Booker list.

The other contenders are "The Shadow of the Object" by Chloe Aridjis, "Black Bag" by Luke Kennard, "The Vivisectors" by Missouri Williams, "Switzy" by Emma Cline, "Helen of Nowhere" by Makenna Goodman and "The Palm House" by Gwendoline Riley.

Beard said the five jurors, who include Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker and American novelist Patricia Lockwood, tried to look beyond the idea of a typical Booker winner — "slightly serious, about to be classic." Instead, she said, they chose novels "trying to expand the boundaries of how we can think about ourselves in completely different ways."

"Sometimes they're using humor, sometimes it's pathos, sometimes there's shock value," Beard said. "They're risk-takers. They are dynamite. They say 'Come on, try seeing it a different way.'"

Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to novels from any country published in the United Kingdom and Ireland and has a reputation for transforming careers. Last year's winner was "Flesh" by Hungarian British writer David Szalay.

The judges will announce six finalists on Sept. 22, and the winner will be revealed Nov. 9 at a ceremony in London.