Black Bag
A broke, out-of-work actor takes a strange gig: sitting at the back of university lectures for a whole autumn term, zipped inside an oversized black bag, for a professor's psychology experiment. Soon a professor of post-humanism has research questions of her own, starting with whether you can love someone hidden in a bag. Meanwhile his childhood friend and flatmate sees a way to make money out of it. Kennard got the idea from a real 1960s black bag experiment.
The weirdest premise on the shortlist, and the funniest.
The Booker judges said: “This of-the-moment satire considers anonymity and disgust, online rackets, and what it means to find love in our unstable times. We admired its sharply crafted sentences and humour.”
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First published in the UK by John Murray, 12 March 2026. The winner is announced November 9, 2026. Source: The Booker Prizes.