A new book by Marlon James, The Disappearers: A Novel (Riverhead Books), will be available for purchase on September 1, 2026. This novel, described as “the electrifying story of the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its far-reaching consequences,” has been longlisted for the Booker Prize 2026. The shortlist will be announced at a public event at the Southbank Centre on September 22, 2026, and the winner will be announced on November 9, 2026, at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate (London, UK). James was the 2015 winner of the Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings.
Description: In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them.
One night the men are savagely beaten and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely.
In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story that is also a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life.
Marlon James is the Booker Prize–winning and New York Times bestselling author of A Brief History of Seven Killings; the bestselling and National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf; as well as the bestselling Moon Witch, Spider King; The Book of Night Women; and John Crow’s Devil. In addition to the Booker Prize, James’s novels have won the American Book Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and the Los Angeles Times Ray Bradbury Prize for Science Fiction, and have been finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the NAACP Image Award. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and named in 2019 one of Time magazine’s one hundred most influential people in the world, James lives in New York City.
The Disappearers: A Novel
Author: Marlon James
ISBN9780593717202
Available on Sep 01, 2026
Published by Riverhead Books
Pages 640
For more information, see https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/742603/the-disappearers-by-marlon-james/
Also see https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booker-library/prize-years/2026