LONDON — Marlon James and Douglas Stuart have a chance to become only the fifth author to win the Booker Prize twice after both were named Tuesday on the shortlist for arguably the U.K.’s most prestigious fiction accolade.
Judges of the award whittled down the 13 semifinalists announced in July to six on Tuesday and said the shortlisted books are “moving, pacey, funny, violent, intriguing, horrifying and hopeful. They were selected from an original 163 submissions. 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 Sept. 2026. The winner stands to win 50,000 pounds . 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.
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. Last year’s winner was “Flesh” by Hungarian-British writer David Szalay .
