{"id":308144,"date":"2026-07-28T23:08:39","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308144\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T23:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T23:08:39","slug":"booker-prize-2026-nominees-marlon-james-elizabeth-strout-and-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/308144\/","title":{"rendered":"Booker Prize 2026 Nominees: Marlon James, Elizabeth Strout and More"},"content":{"rendered":"

Marlon James\u2019s \u201cThe Disappearers,\u201d the Jamaican writer\u2019s first non-fantasy novel since he won the 2015 Booker Prize<\/a> for \u201cA Brief History of Seven Killings<\/a>,\u201d is already one of the year\u2019s most anticipated literary releases.<\/p>\n

Now the novel, about an anti-gay hate crime in 1980s Jamaica, is likely to be even more so. On Tuesday, it was nominated for the Booker Prize along with a dozen other books, including fellow Booker winner Douglas Stuart\u2019s \u201cJohn of John\u201d and \u201cThe Things We Never Say\u201d by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout.<\/p>\n

The Booker, a distinguished British literary award, is given out each year to a title originally written in English and published in Britain or Ireland. The judging panel, led this year by the classicist Mary Beard, will announce a six-book shortlist on Sept. 22. The winner will be named at a ceremony in London on Nov. 9. Its author will receive 50,000 pounds, about $66,500.<\/p>\n

Here are the nominees.<\/p>\n

by Chloe Aridjis<\/p>\n

In this dreamlike tale, a woman who is hospitalized after being bitten by a dog must return a magic lantern to another patient\u2019s son. John Self, writing in The Financial Times<\/a>, said that the book had \u201can intense flavour that can only come from an author\u2019s deep investment in their material.\u201d<\/p>\n

by Emma Cline<\/p>\n

Set for an Sept. 8 release<\/a>, Cline\u2019s third novel follows a retired business executive with a degenerative neurological disease as he visits friends and family before his medically assisted death in Zurich.<\/p>\n

by Makenna Goodman<\/p>\n

The author\u2019s second novel centers on a professor who, after losing his job and partner, heads to the countryside, where he hopes to live a bucolic existence he\u2019s not ready for. Jo Hamya, in The Guardian<\/a>, called it \u201ca perfect fairy tale for our times.\u201d<\/p>\n

by M. John Harrison<\/p>\n

A beachcomber pulls a mysterious being from the sand in this science fiction novel set in a coastal town. John Self, in The Times of London<\/a>, said that Harrison, 81, \u201chas been writing confounding, brilliant books for more than 50 years,\u201d and that this was another one.<\/p>\n

by Marlon James<\/p>\n

James\u2019s latest, which is scheduled for a Sept. 1 release<\/a>, revolves around eight men in 1980s Jamaica who respond to a casting call for a play with openly L.G.B.T.Q. themes and are then met with bigotry and violence.<\/p>\n

by Kenan Orhan<\/p>\n

A Turkish exile living in Italy hires builders to remodel her bathroom \u2014 and discovers that they\u2019ve built a prison cell instead. MJ Franklin, in The New York Times<\/a>, said that learning its premise was sufficient to make him think, \u201cEnough, I\u2019m in!\u201d<\/p>\n

by Rebecca Perry<\/p>\n

Perry\u2019s novel begins with a curator transforming a former palace to make it look historically accurate, then darts hundreds of years backward into the world of a medieval king. Melissa Harrison in The Guardian<\/a> called it a \u201chighly wrought puzzle-box of a book.\u201d<\/p>\n

by Gwendoline Riley<\/p>\n

Riley\u2019s latest book<\/a> recounts the travails of an editor and a contributor to a highbrow magazine after a new executive arrives to shake it up. Christian Lorentzen, in The New York Times, described Riley as a novelist who\u2019s \u201cas thoroughly unsentimental as J.M. Coetzee or Michel Houellebecq.\u201d Read our review.<\/a><\/p>\n

by Elizabeth Strout<\/p>\n

A depressed high school history teacher discovers a long-hidden family secret in this story by an author who has been nominated for the Booker twice before, for \u201cOh William<\/a>!\u201d and \u201cMy Name is Lucy Barton<\/a>.\u201d Maggie Shipstead, writing in The New York Times, said this latest work \u201crewards rereading.\u201d Read our review.<\/a><\/p>\n

by Douglas Stuart<\/p>\n

A gay man returns to his abusive father\u2019s farm on a Scottish island in the latest work from the author of \u201cShuggie Bain<\/a>.\u201d In The New York Times, Mark Harris called Stuart\u2019s latest work a \u201cmoving, suspenseful, completely worth-your-time\u201d book. Read our review.<\/a><\/p>\n

by Djamel White<\/p>\n

White\u2019s debut novel is about a Dublin gangster who flees from a feud and then tries to return to a life of crime five years later. Elizabeth Mannion, in The Irish Times<\/a>, said the novel was \u201cbeautifully audacious\u201d and filled with \u201cstreet lyricism.\u201d<\/p>\n

by Missouri Williams<\/p>\n

An academic befriends a student involved in a culture war controversy in this experimental novel. Ann Manov, in The New York Times, said \u201cthe novel promises a dangerous critique of contemporary sexual and cultural politics, and a narrator who sympathizes with the collective enemy; instead, it retreats into metaphor and meteorology.\u201d Read our review.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marlon James\u2019s \u201cThe Disappearers,\u201d the Jamaican writer\u2019s first non-fantasy novel since he won the 2015 Booker Prize for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116627,36197,87771,116626,116622,43473,88595,116624,51737,1443,116628,116621,116620,116625,16823,9,11,10,8658,116623,105978,116633,116629,116631,116632,116630,18066],"class_list":["post-308144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-aridjis","tag-books-and-literature","tag-chloe","tag-cline","tag-douglas-author","tag-elizabeth","tag-emma","tag-gwendoline","tag-harrison","tag-james","tag-john-of-john-book","tag-m-john","tag-man-booker-prize","tag-marlon-1970","tag-missouri","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-riley","tag-strout","tag-stuart","tag-the-end-of-everything-a-novel-book","tag-the-palm-house-book","tag-the-renovation-book","tag-the-things-we-never-say-book","tag-the-vivisectors-book","tag-williams"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}