Elizabeth Strout, Douglas Stuart, Marlon James and Rebecca Perry are among the authors who have been longlisted for this year's Booker Prize.
The 13 chosen books include novels set in Mexico City, a remote Scottish island, an assisted suicide clinic in Zurich, 1980s Jamaica, post-apocalyptic Kent, and coastal Massachussetts before the 2024 US election.
Chair of the judges Mary Beard described the 13 novels as "dynamite", adding: “We are confident that our longlist of books has something for everyone.”
The longlist, referred to as the Booker Dozen, will be whittled down to a shortlist on 22 September, before the winner is announced on 9 November.
The annual Booker Prize is the literary world's most prestigious award, recognising long-form fiction by writers of any nationality, written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
The six shortlisted authors will receive £2,500 each and a specially bound edition of their book, while the eventual winner will receive a trophy and £50,000 in prize money.
High-profile authors who missed this year's longlist include Maggie O'Farrell, Ann Patchett, John Lanchester, Deborah Levy and Julian Barnes, who many predicted would be recognised for his final book Departure(s).
Booker Prize 2026: The 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 Booker judges received 163 submissions for this year's prize before settling on the final 13.
Each of the five judges read all the submitted books, with Beard joking she "occasionally felt daunted as a new box of 30 or so gleaming volumes landed on my doorstep".
“But what I shall most remember is the eye-opening pleasure of it all, and what I learnt about reading and the power of fiction from my fellow judges.”
What are the longlisted books about?
Three of this year's authors in the Booker Dozen are previous shortlistees, including Elizabeth Strout, who is recognised for The Things We Never Say.
It follows a high school history teacher in Massachusetts who is grappling with isolation, post-pandemic social anxiety, and concern about the forthcoming 2024 US election.
The two other former shortlistees have also previously won the prize. Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart is recognised this time for John of John, about a young gay man who returns to his strict religious family on a remote Scottish island.
Another former winner, Marlon James, returns this year with The Disappearers, a 600-page book due to be released in September about eight gay men in Kingston, Jamaica, who are targeted by a violent mob during a play rehearsal.
James's is the longest book this year, while the shortest is Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman - a 140-page novel which follows a disgraced professor touring an idyllic countryside house, learning about its previous owner.
Another longlistee, Rebecca Perry, won the Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize earlier this month for her novel May We Feed The King, about a curator of historic buildings who begins to explore the life of an almost-forgotten medieval king.
Two other authors are recognised for debut works - including Kenan Orhan for The Renovation, about a psychologist caring for her dementia-suffering father in Italy when some building work doesn't go to plan.
Fellow debut novelist Djamel White is recognised for All Them Dogs, which follows a man returning to west Dublin after being on the run for five years because he killed someone in a gang fight.
Aged 28, White is the youngest longlistee this year. The oldest is 81-year-old M John Harrison, for The End of Everything, a post-apocalyptic novel set in a Kent coastal town.
Switzy by Emma Cline, due to be published in September, is about a wealthy and accomplished man travelling to an assisted suicide clinic in Switzerland; while The Shadow of the Object by Chloe Aridjis sees an encounter in a Mexico City hospital lead to a life-changing friendship.
Gwendoline Riley's The Palm House, meanwhile, follows a London freelancer and her long friendship with a senior magazine editor; and Missouri Williams's The Vivisectors follows a graduate student in a decaying university city overrun by wild plants.
The list is completed by Luke Kennard's Black Bag, about a penniless out-of-work actor who is paid to zip himself inside a large black leather bag and sit silently at the back of a university lecture hall for a psychological experiment.
In a statement, Beard said: "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.
"Books are not mirrors: they don't simply reflect ourselves back to us. One of the many important things about fiction is that it helps us see what it might be like not to be us, to begin to understand the perspectives of others, and to imagine what it might be like to see the world differently.
“Great books are not cosy. In their various ways, the novels we have chosen are (we hope) dynamite.”
Last year's Booker Prize was won by British-Hungarian author David Szalay, for his novel Flesh.
Source: BBC
– Agencies
