Overview

• The six finalists are Flashlight (Susan Choi), The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny (Kiran Desai), Audition (Katie Kitamura), The Rest of Our Lives (Ben Markovits), The Land in Winter (Andrew Miller) and Flesh (David Szalay).
• The judging panel, chaired by Roddy Doyle and including Ayobami Adebayo, Sarah Jessica Parker, Chris Power and Kiley Reid, met for about four hours to settle on the shortlist after a July longlist.
• This year’s list features no debut novels and includes three American authors alongside British, Indian and Hungarian‑British writers, with only one British author represented.
• Doyle praised the selections as "brilliantly human," while Parker described the final cut as "real agony," underscoring the deliberative and emotionally difficult process.
• The winner will be announced in London on 10 November at Old Billingsgate, with the author receiving £50,000 and the ceremony broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and livestreamed on Booker channels.