Booker Prize heads towards shortlist: announcement on September 22

The most closely followed literary prize in the English-speaking world is entering the phase in which the field narrows. The shortlist of the Booker Prize 2026 will be announced on September 22 at a ceremony at the Southbank Centre in London, while the winner will be proclaimed on November 9 at Old Billingsgate, in the City, with a live online broadcast. This is reported by Publishers Weekly based on the foundation’s statement, and by the Booker Prize Foundation itself.

The prize’s numbers

The award is worth £50,000 and is aimed at the best novel in the English language published in the United Kingdom or Ireland between October 1, 2025 and September 30, 2026. The longlist, announced on July 28, comprises thirteen titles selected from 163 works: this means that just over one novel out of thirteen among those examined has passed the first filter, and that on September 22 the list will shrink further.

The composition of the list says something about the prize’s geographical center of gravity: five American authors and six British ones, with ages ranging from 28 to 81. This is the effect of the Booker’s opening up to writers of any nationality provided they are published in the English language in the United Kingdom or Ireland — a rule that has shifted the prize from the perimeter of the Commonwealth to that of the English-language publishing market.

This year’s jury is chaired by classicist Mary Beard, joined by Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood: a poet, a musician, a journalist and a writer around a scholar of the ancient world.

“Books are not mirrors: they do not simply reflect us back” (transl. from English) — Mary Beard, chair of the Booker Prize 2026 jury

Sunday, Rome with free admission

On the matter of access to heritage, on Sunday September 6 Roma Capitale is opening civic museums, archaeological sites and temporary exhibitions free of charge. The Museo della Forma Urbis, the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina, the archaeological area of the Circo Massimo and the Fori Imperiali will be accessible without a ticket. At the Musei Capitolini four temporary exhibitions will be open to visit free of charge; at the Galleria d’Arte Moderna “A Century of the Municipal Gallery 1925-2025” continues, with over 120 works for the institution’s centenary; at the Musei di Villa Torlonia, “Siete e Roma” by Pedro Cano is on display, and at the Casina delle Civette, “Sotto una buona stella”, dedicated to the emblem of the Republic in the papers of Paolo Paschetto.

Guided tours of Palazzo Senatorio, promoted by Roma Capitale with the Sovrintendenza Capitolina, are free but require mandatory booking, open from September 3 at 4 p.m.: four sessions of a maximum of thirty participants each, departing at 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 3 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., lasting approximately 75 minutes. One hundred and twenty places in total: the number shows how narrow the bottleneck is between the announced opening and the actual opening. The news currently comes from a single source (Quotidiano La Voce, which reports the communication from the Sovrintendenza Capitolina); no independent confirmation available.

What we don’t know

We do not know the titles of the Booker’s longlist nor the names of the thirteen authors: the extracts provide the composition by nationality and age, not the list itself. We do not know how many titles will make up the shortlist on September 22. On the Roman front, the opening hours of the individual sites are not indicated, nor whether the free admission also covers any paid exhibitions other than those listed.

The two dates to mark are September 22 in London and Sunday September 6 in Rome, where booking for Palazzo Senatorio is already open.