Marlon James and Douglas Stuart have chance to become 5th multiple winner of Booker Prize book award

LONDON (AP) — Marlon James and Douglas Stuart are poised to become only the fifth author to achieve the remarkable feat of winning the Booker Prize twice after both were named to the shortlist for one of the UK's most prestigious literary awards.

The Booker Prize, celebrating the best works of long-form fiction by writers from any nationality penned in English and published in the UK and/or Ireland between October 2025 and September 2026, selected six shortlisted titles from an initial 163 submissions. The award-winning books range from the humorous to the unsettling, from the terrifyingly strange to the oddly unassuming.

Historian Mary Beard, head of the judging panel, expressed that the shortlisted manuscripts felt like "old friends" after at least two readings, and revealed that it was painful to part with them. The list features James' "The Disappearers," set in Jamaica in the 1980s, and Stuart's "John of John," revolving around father-son secrets on a remote Scottish island.

James won the Booker in 2015 for "A Brief History of Seven Killings," while Stuart claimed the award in 2020 for "Shuggie Bain." If either were to win again, they would join J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel, and Margaret Atwood as the fifth author to have been honored twice with the Booker Prize. The other shortlisted authors include Elizabeth Strout, a Pulitzer Prize winner whose heartwarming tale of New England life, "The Things We Never Say," previously earned her a Pulitzer nomination in 2022. Rebecca Perry, M. John Harrison, and Luke Kennard also made the shortlist.