Professor Luke Kennard’s comedic and absurdist novel, Black Bag, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026.
Black Bag by Luke Kennard, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham, has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026.
Professor Kennard’s novel was one of six books to make it to the final round of judging for this year’s prize, after being included on the longlist of 13. The winning book will be announced on Monday, 9 November.
The shortlist announcement was made at the Southbank Centre in London by the judging panel chair, celebrated classicist, writer and broadcaster Mary Beard.
Running for 55 years, the Booker Prize is one of the most prestigious awards a book can receive; an annual recognition of the best ‘sustained work of fiction’ written in English and published in the UK and Ireland.
On his Booker Prize shortlisting, Professor Kennard said: "I’m flabbergasted and very happy. Probably the biggest privilege of something like this is the new readers it brings to your work, which is beyond an audience I ever dreamed of. I’m extremely grateful.”
Probably the biggest privilege of something like this is the new readers it brings to your work, which is beyond an audience I ever dreamed of. I’m extremely grateful.
Published in March 2026, Black Bag is described as 'an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story'.
It follows an out-of-work actor who takes on a strange job: sitting zipped inside an oversized bag at the back of a lecture hall throughout the autumn term, as part of a psychological experiment run by Dr Blend, a university professor. As the experiment plays out, a professor of post-humanism finds herself drawn into a question of her own: can you fall in love with someone hidden away inside a black bag?
Of Black Bag, the judges said: “The most memorable thing about the novel is the way it combines that absurd experiment with a moving story about human frailty, passion, confusion and identity.”
Mary Beard is joined on the judging panel by award-winning poet, writer and educator Raymond Antrobus; musician, writer and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker; journalist, editor and critic Rebecca Liu; and Booker Prize-shortlisted novelist, poet and essayist Patricia Lockwood. The judges whittled the final six Booker Prize contenders down from 163 submissions.
The shortlist includes previous Booker Prize winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart and three-time nominee Elizabeth Strout. Half of the authors, including Professor Kennard, are making their debut on a Booker Prize shortlist.
As well as making the Booker Prize shortlist, Black Bag has been called a 'brilliant comic tour de force ' by the Times, and the Times Literary Supplement described it as an 'ode to the importance of friendship, tenderness and love'.
The winner of the Booker Prize will receive £50,000, while the shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500.
Professor Luke Kennard discusses his writing career, why he’ll never stop being an absurdist and how his new novel is a rejection of demands on modern artists.
For more information and media inquiries, please contact Ellie Hail (e.hail@bham.ac.uk), Communications Officer, University of Birmingham, on +44 (0)7966 311 409. Out-of-hours, please call +44 (0) 121 414 2772.
Professor of Creative Writing
Biographical and contact information for Dr Luke Kennard, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Birmingham.
