AN IRISH WRITER has been named alongside 12 other authors on the longlist for the 2026 Booker Prize. 

Djamel White, a 28-year-old author and former tattoo shop manager, is the youngest writer on this year’s longlist with his first novel All Them Dogs. 

Set in West Dublin, the book tells the story of Tony Ward, a man who returns to Ireland having been lying low abroad for five years, his efforts to reinsert himself into the local gangland network and his relationship with a top enforcer of a notorious crime boss. 

The idea emerged from short story Blue Opel, which White wrote during the early days of the first Covid lockdown. It was selected as a 2026 book to watch in New Statesman, the Irish Times, the Sunday Independent and RTÉ.

The judges called All Them Dogs “a ballsy, unsentimental portrait of West Dublin gangland, set well off the beaten track of the city’s usual literary landmarks”.

They said White “has an ear for dialogue that is both racy and real”. 

All Them Dogs by Djamel White. Booker Prize Booker Prize

After leaving school at 17, White volunteered in the Irish non-profit literary organisation Fighting Words – established by Roddy Doyle in 2009 – which reinforced his love of writing.

He went on to attend University College Dublin and earned a BA in English and Creative Writing, followed by an MFA in Creative Writing, and was mentored by writers including Anne Enright.

He has been the recipient of a Literature Bursary Award and an Agility Award from the Arts Council of Ireland. 

Among the other authors to make the longlist are Jamaican author Marlon James, who won the prize in 2015, with his novel The Disappearers, and Scottish-American writer Douglas Stuart, who won in 2020, with his novel John of John.

The longlist was selected from 163 submissions.

The 2026 Booker Prize judging panel is chaired by classicist, writer and broadcaster Mary Beard and also features award-winning poet, writer and educator Raymond Antrobus; musician, writer and broadcaster Jarvis Cocker and journalist, editor and critic Rebecca Liu.

Beard said the panel is confident that the list “has something for everyone”. 

“There’s the funny and the unsettling (and in some cases the funny and unsettling); there’s dystopian fantasy and domestic drama; there’s the gritty and the magically mysterious; there are some that will please and some that may shock,” she said. 

“And they are set anywhere and everywhere: Ireland and Italy, Mexico and Massachusetts, Jamaica and the Hebrides, universities, private planes and pubs, past, present and future.

“But there’s one thing they all share. Every writer on our longlist brilliantly musters the power of words on the page to take the reader to new places, to see old places from new angles, to change minds.”

All 13 books on the longlist. Yuki Sugiura / Booker Prize Yuki Sugiura / Booker Prize / Booker Prize

First awarded in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to writers of any nationality writing in English and published in the UK and Ireland.

The shortlist will be announced in the Queen Elizabeth Hall at London’s Southbank Centre on 22 September. The six shortlisted authors will each receive £2,500 (€3,000) and a specially bound edition of their book.

The winner will be announced on 9 November at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London. The winner receives £50,000 (€58,000) and a trophy named ‘Iris’.

The full Booker Prize 2026 longlist is:

• The Shadow of the Object – Chloe Aridjis (Mexican-British)
• Switzy – Emma Cline (American)
• Helen of Nowhere – Makenna Goodman (American)
• The End of Everything – M. John Harrison (British)
• The Disappearers – Marlon James (Jamaican)
• Black Bag – Luke Kennard (British)
• The Renovation – Kenan Orhan (Turkish-American)
• May We Feed the King – Rebecca Perry (British)
• The Palm House – Gwendoline Riley (British)
• The Things We Never Say – Elizabeth Strout (American)
• John of John – Douglas Stuart (Scottish-American)
• All Them Dogs – Djamel White (Irish)
• The Vivisectors – Missouri Williams (British)