By Pan Pylas
Contributing Writer
LONDON (AP) – Jamaican novelist Marlon James could become only the fifth author to win the coveted Booker Prize more than once after being named to the shortlist for arguably the U.K.’s most prestigious fiction accolade.
Judges of the award whittled down the 13 semi-finalists announced in July to six Sept. 22 and said the shortlisted books are “moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying and hopeful.” They were selected from an original 163 submissions.
The list includes James’ “The Disappearers,” about a group of gay men facing a hostile environment in 1980s Jamaica. James also won the Booker in 2015 for “A Brief History of Seven Killings”
Author Douglas Stuart’s “John of John,” a story of father-son secrets on a remote Scottish island also made the cut. If selected, Stuart also would become only the fifth author to win the award twice, joining J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Arwood.
“Most of these books were beginning to feel like old friends after at least two readings,” said historian Mary Beard, head of the judging panel. “And it was painful to have to let some of them go, with their now bent spines and dog-eared pages, their brilliant capacity to make us think, argue and sometimes disagree.”
The Booker Prize celebrates the best works of long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the U.K. and/or Ireland between October 2025 and September 2026. The winner stands to win 50,000 pounds, $67,000 in U.S. money.
Founded in 1969, the Booker Prize has a reputation for transforming writers’ careers and is open to novels from any country published in the U.K. and Ireland. Last year’s winner was “Flesh” by Hungarian-British writer David Szalay.
Also on the shortlist is Pulitzer Prize laureate Elizabeth Strout, whose heartfelt small-town tale “The Things We Never Say” once again celebrates the lives of those in her native New England. Strout won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2009 for “Olive Kitteridge.”
The others on the list are British authors Rebecca Perry for Medieval-to-modern tale “May We Feed the King;” 81-year-old M. John Harrison, who would become the oldest winner of the award if his postapocalyptic tale “The End of Everything” wins; and the quirky campus novel “Black Bag” from Luke Kennard.
It’s only the second time in the past decade that men have outnumbered women on the shortlist. The winner will be announced Nov. 9 at a ceremony in London.
Pan Pylas writes for the Associated Press.
