On 28 July, the 2026 Booker Prize longlist dropped and set the literary world ablaze.
This year’s “Booker Dozen” includes 13 works of long-form fiction, chosen from 163 titles written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between 1 October 2025 and 30 September 2026.
In an interview last year, judge Patricia Lockword declared that “We’re due a return of weird literature,” and, dear reader, it seems her prophecy has come to pass. From a novel that begins with the image of a disembodied hand, waving in mid-air, to a fuzzy chronicle filtered through the perspective of a man riddled with dementia, these novels are bizarre and harrowing in the best way.
Read on for Cold’s cheat sheet on how to the 13 novels nominated for this year’s prize.
The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis
This is the fourth novel from Mexican-American surrealist writer Chloe Aridjis. It’s a story told through shadow puppets and fantasy, beginning when Flora, visiting home in Mexico, is bitten in the hand by the family dog. She finds herself in hospital where she undergoes several surgeries and meets Wilhelmina, an elderly German woman with pneumonia, who collects pre-cinema toys and instruments.
The two of them embark on a series of dream-like conversations in the hospital corridors. Wilhelmina puts on a magic lantern show for Flora, leaving her spellbound, until her death sends Flora into an emotional tailspin. Meditative yet propulsive, this first novel on the longlist explores questions of memory, identity, and the nature of reality through Aridjis’s richly atmospheric prose.
Published by Chatto & Windus on 26 April 2026
Switzy by Emma Cline
The bestselling author of The Girls, Emma Cline’s latest novel centres on David, a recently retired executive travelling by private jet to Zurich under misty circumstances. As fragments of his past gradually come into focus, Cline peels back the layers of a life defined by wealth and status.
As David glides through hotel rooms, airports, and foreign cities, he is running out the clock on his mortal life. Our protagonist’s grasp on the present slips away, and the past rushes in: the Sunday roasts of childhood. The stiff clothes meant only for church. A summer at a school friend’s house.
As readers have come to expect from Cline, Switzy is driven by an elusive central character, but here Cline turns her attention to questions of money, ageing and the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives. Crushing and psychologically astute, Cline’s fourth novel confirms her reputation as one of the freshest voices in contemporary American fiction.
Published by Chatto & Windus on 10 September 2026
Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
Is this a novel or a play? Chances are, you’ll be just as unsure how to answer that question when you finish reading as you are when you begin. In her second novel, Makenna Goodman tells the story of a university professor known only as “Man.” After the twin collapses of both his marriage and his academic career, Man retreats to the countryside.
There, he encounters an estate agent, named simply “Realtor,” whose side hustle as a psychic sets the tone for a novel that is as strange as it is electric. Through a six act structure and extended monologues, Goodman’s radical novel follows Man as he becomes fixated on the previous owner of his home, the mystifying Helen, whose presence still seems to suffuse every fixture.
No facet of modern life is left unturned here. From parenting, to home ownership, to agriculture, Goodman tunnels you to one of the most unexpected novel endings of 2026.
Published by Fitzcarraldo Editions on 29 January 2026
The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
This 81-year-old writer’s novel imagines a Britain that has been dropped into total disrepair. With an impenetrable fog separating the tiny island from the rest of mainland Europe, the characters in The End of Everything struggle with everyday life, on top of being haunted by strange lifeforms called iGhetti.
Harrison creates a world in which familiar certainties have dissolved and reality itself feels unstable. As his characters struggle to distinguish truth from illusion, the novel becomes an unsettling investigation into fear, identity, and the breakdown of society. Should it take home the Booker Prize, Harrison would become the oldest winner in the award’s history – beating Margaret Atwood’s title, who won the prize at 79 for The Testaments in 2019.
Published by Serpent’s Tail on 18 June 2026
The Disappearers by Marlon James
More than a decade after winning the Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings (2014), Jamaican writer Marlon James returns to his home country, the setting that cemented his literary reputation, to explore a new story. The Disappearers follows a group of eight gay men who come together in Kingston in 1988 after responding to an audition for a queer theatre production.
When violence interrupts one of their rehearsals, their lives are irrevocably altered, setting the stage for an ambitious novel that explores community, identity, and survival against the backdrop of a deeply homophobic society. Pushing the boundaries of what we can expect from contemporary gay novels, this forthcoming novel marks the next chapter in James’ career.
Published by Hamish Hamilton on 17 September 2026
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
Both a poet and a novelist, Luke Kennard’s latest novel investigates a real-life social psychology experiment from the 1960s. Transposed into modern day, Black Bag tells the story of a penniless and out-of-work actor who picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment.
How will Dr Blend’s students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures? Witty and irreverent, Kennard’s prose considers anonymity and disgust, life online, loneliness, cryptocurrency, and more.
Published by John Murray on 12 March 2026
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
Following his acclaimed debut short story collection, I Am My Country, Turkish-American writer Kenan Orhan makes his Booker-longlisted novel debut with The Renovation. Set in Italy, the novel follows a woman overseeing renovations to her ageing father’s home after he fled political persecution in Turkey and later developed dementia.
When the builders unexpectedly leave behind a prison cell instead of the promised en suite bathroom, this story of migration and family takes an unexpected turn into the surreal. If you’re looking for the weird in this unique Booker longlist, here it is. Oscillating between domestic realism and unreality, Orhan explores the different forms imprisonment can take.
Published by Hamish Hamilton on 26 March 2026
May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
Rebecca Perry’s debut novel arrives on the Booker longlist following a whirlwind breakthrough year. Just a week ago, she was announced as the winner of the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize. So what’s all the fuss about? May We Feed the King moves between the present day and a medieval royal court, beginning with an unnamed museum curator whose research gradually opens a window onto the life of a troubled king struggling beneath the weight of his crown.
Blending historical fiction with psychological suspense, Perry crafts a delicately layered novel that asks us to ponder power, duty, and the ways stories are preserved throughout the ages. Racking up the accolades, May We Feed the King marks an impressive debut from one of Britain’s most exciting new literary voices.
Published by Granta on 29 January 2026
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
With her seventh novel, Gwendoline Riley receives her first Booker Prize longlisting. Perhaps familiar to those who work in journalism, this story picks up at the moment a London arts magazine receives the news that they will be under the leadership of a divisive new editor.
Blending workplace drama with an exploration of human memory, Riley’s novel follows narrator Laura Miller as she listens to her colleague Edmund Putnam’s mounting frustrations while reflecting on her own past, particularly her tricky relationship with her mother. Funny, yet tragic, this intimate novel will be a mainstay on “best of” lists for years to come (even if it doesn’t take home the Booker).
Published by Picador on 2 April 2026
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout returns to the Booker longlist for the third time with a novel that expands beyond her much-loved recurring characters, Olive Kitteridge and Lucy Barton. This standalone story centres on Artie Dam, a schoolteacher whose life begins to unravel as he confronts thoughts of suicide.
Set in a small American town, this already-classic novel explores the ways people become disconnected from one another and from themselves. While perhaps not the defining work of Strout’s celebrated career, this latest entry in her oeuvre is made sharper by her willingness to tackle contemporary political issues happening in America in 2026.
Published by Viking on 7 May 2026
John of John by Douglas Stuart
After winning the 2020 Booker Prize with his debut, Shuggie Bain, Scottish literary star Douglas Stuart is back with his third novel: John of John. Other novelists on this year’s longlist have found success by digging their heels into the place of their birth, and Stuart is no different.
Set on the remote Isle of Harris in the 1990s, Stuart’s latest installment of Scottish tales follows 22-year-old Cal (John-Calum) as he returns home from Edinburgh with a textiles degree, a Walkman, and a hefty amount of student debts. Back on his father’s croft, Cal and his family navigate the tensions between their personal ambitions and religious and familial expectations.
With its tangible portrayal of island life and the complexities of father-son relationships, this novel sees Stuart take a real quantum leap in his world-building capabilities. A second Booker win would place him among the rare authors to claim the prize twice in such a short period.
Published by Picador on 21 May 2026
All Them Dogs by Djamel White
A ballsy and bracingly unsentimental portrait of West Dublin gangland, it comes as no surprise to learn that Djamel White is the youngest author on this year’s longlist. At just 28, his sketching here is a sharp and ambitious portrait of one man’s ambition.
The story follows Tony Ward, a man returning from a five years leave who is determined to rebuild his reputation and reclimb the ranks of Dublin’s gangs. His ambitions become complicated when he forms an unexpected connection with Darren “Flute” Walsh, a ruthless enforcer working for a powerful crime figure. Beneath its gritty surface, White’s novel is a nuanced exploration of loyalty and vulnerability, performing a painful social autopsy at breakneck speed.
Published by John Murray on 26 March 2026
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams
Missouri Williams is a wildcard entry here. Her first novel, The Doloriad, was published by the small, independent publisher Dead Ink Books in 2022. Just a mere four years later, her sophomore novel, The Vivisectors, is here from Fourth Estate and has landed her on the prestigious Booker longlist.
This odd campus novel takes place in a crumbling university city overrun by vegetation, where Agathe spends her days listlessly propping up the career of her fraudulent professor boss. But as scandal breaks out over the campus and career-ending accusations begin flying, Adam, Agathe finds herself both caught up in the events tearing the city apart. Williams’s distinctive style is likely to fascinate some readers while dividing others.
Published by 4th Estate on 21 May 2026
