The long list for the Booker Prize has been revealed, including potentially the oldest ever winner at 18.
The 13 books selected for the longlist also features authors representing three continents and seven countries: England, Ireland, Scotland, Jamaica, Mexico, Turkey and America.
The 81-year-old science fiction novelist, Michael John Harrison, best known for the Viriconium series, Climbers and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, was longlisted for his novel The End Of Everything.
Set in post-apocalyptic Britain, on the Kent coast, the novel follows beachcomber Phillip Tennent as he discovers a new artefact he must keep to himself before it destroys everything he thinks he knows.
Harrison, who was part of the 2022 Booker Prize judging panel, could become the oldest winner in the history of the prize – with the title currently held by Margaret Atwood who was 79 when she won the 2019 prize for The Testaments.
He faces three debut authors, 28-year old Djamel White’s All Them Dogs, Kenan Orhan with The Renovation and Rebecca Perry with May We Feed the King.
The list also features Pulitzer prize-winner and three-time Booker Prize nominee, Elizabeth Strout, who was longlisted for her 11th novel, The Things We Never Say.
Strout was previously nominated in 2016 for My Name is Lucy Barton and shortlisted in 2022 for Oh William!
Meanwhile bestselling author, Marlon James, is longlisted for his fifth novel, the 640-page book, The Disappearers, which is due to be published in September.
James previously won the prize in 2015 with A Brief History of Seven Killings and is joined by fellow former winner Douglas Stuart who took the prize in 2020 with his debut novel Shuggie Bain and has been nominated for his novel, John of John.
If either were to win they would be the fifth author to have been awarded the Booker Prize twice, joining the likes of Hilary Mantel (2009 and 2012) and Margaret Atwood (2000 and 2019).
Mexican-British author Chloe Aridjis could be the first author of Mexican heritage to win the prize with her novel, The Shadow of the Object, with Orhan, who is Turkish-American, also up for a potential history-making win as the first winner of Turkish heritage with his book The Renovation.
Other books longlisted include The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams, Switzy by Emma Cline, Makenna Goodman’s Helen of Nowhere, Black Bag by Luke Kennard and Gwendoline Riley’s The Palm House.
The 2026 Booker Prize longlist in full:
The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis
Switzy by Emma Cline
Helen Of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman
The End Of Everything by M John Harrison
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Black Bag by Luke Kennard
The Renovation by Kenan Orhan
May We Feed The King by Rebecca Perry
The Palm House by Gwendoline Riley
The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
John Of John by Douglas Stuart
All Them Dogs by Djamel White
The Vivisectors by Missouri Williams
The 2026 judging panel was chaired by writer and broadcaster Mary Beard who was joined by Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker, poet and writer Raymond Antrobus, journalist Rebecca Liu, and Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist, Patricia Lockwood.
Beard said: “Great books have never been written to a single formula. We are confident that our longlist of books has something for everyone.
“There’s the funny and the unsettling (and in some cases the funny and unsettling); there’s dystopian fantasy and domestic drama; there’s the gritty and the magically mysterious; there are some that will please and some that may shock.
“But there’s one thing they all share. Every writer on our longlist brilliantly musters the power of words on the page to take the reader to new places, to see old places from new angles, to change minds.”
The 2026 selection was chosen from 163 submissions and aims to celebrate the best works of long-form fiction written in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between October 2025 and September 2026.
The six shortlisted authors will be announced in September at an event held at the Southbank Centre and receive £2,500 and a specially bound edition of their book.
The winning title and author revealed on November 9 with the winner receiving £50,000 and a trophy named ‘Iris’.