Previous Booker Prize winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart are among the authors shortlisted for this year's award. They are joined by Pulitzer winner Elizabeth Strout, prominent British speculative fiction writer M John Harrison, novelist and poet Luke Kennard, and debut novelist Rebecca Perry.
Marlon James, who won in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings, is shortlisted for The Disappearers. Douglas Stuart, the 2020 winner for Shuggie Bain, is nominated for John of John. Elizabeth Strout, a 2009 Pulitzer winner, is shortlisted for The Things We Never Say, while M John Harrison is recognised for The End of Everything.
Luke Kennard's comic campus novel Black Bag and Rebecca Perry's debut May We Feed the King complete the shortlist. The winner of the £50,000 prize is scheduled to be announced on Monday, 9 November.