We are delighted to celebrate the inclusion of Luke Kennard and Gwendoline Riley on the 2026 Booker Prize longlist, recognising two extraordinary novels from two of contemporary literature’s most distinctive voices.
Luke Kennard’s Black Bag is a sharp, inventive satire of modern life, exploring ambition, anonymity, masculinity and the challenges of surviving in contemporary London. The Booker Prize judges praised the novel’s “of-the-moment” exploration of instability and identity, writing:
“How does an aspiring actor survive in contemporary London, where monthly living costs can rise well over a thousand pounds? The obvious solution, be born rich, has eluded Black Bag’s protagonist, a 37-year-old man who cobbles together an artistically and financially unsatisfying life performing in productions that stretch and undermine the meaning of theatre. That is until he gets a job showing up to student psychology lectures dressed in a black bag.”
They continued to praise Kennard’s examination of “anonymity and disgust, the online rackets of cryptocurrency and energy drinks, and what it means to find love in our unstable times”, alongside the novel’s “sharply crafted sentences, memorable sex scenes, and humour”.
Gwendoline Riley’s The Palm House is a precise and unsettling exploration of literature, power and belonging. The Booker Prize judges described it as:
“Most chilling story ever told: our literary magazine has got a new editor, and he’s coming in with some big ideas.”
They praised Riley’s “note-perfect portrait” of both “certain rarefied London intellectual spaces” and the people who inhabit them, exploring how personal histories, relationships, desires and lonelinesses contribute to the larger structures we think of as the Establishment.
The judges highlighted the novel’s probing questions around influence and hierarchy: “Who, in these places, has power, and how is that power wielded?” They described The Palm House as “minimalist, precise, and indelible”, praising its exceptional dialogue and its exploration of what it means to seek belonging within the literary world.
We are incredibly proud to see both Luke and Gwendoline recognised on this year’s longlist. Congratulations to them, and to all the writers included on the 2026 Booker Prize longlist.
Agency Client Luke Kennard is represented by Katie Haines
Agency Client Gwendoline Riley is represented by Emily Hickman
