Why Read?: Booker Prize 2026

About Why Read?: Booker Prize 2026

Whether you follow literary awards closely, are simply curious about the buzz around the Booker Prize, or haven’t picked up a book in a while, Why Read?: Booker Prize 2026 is an invitation to discover some of the most talked about fiction of the year. One of the world’s best-known literary awards, recognising outstanding long-form fiction written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.

Join Dr Ian Tan as he takes us through selected titles from the Booker Prize 2026 shortlist. He will draw out the ideas and questions that connect them, from identity and the forces that shape who we are, to the very different worlds imagined through dystopian fiction, contemporary realism, campus satire and historical fiction.

The session will culminate in a discussion of the 2026 Booker Prize winner, exploring the book, its ideas and what might have made it stand out.

All are welcome to join the programme, whether you’re a Booker Prize follower or a curious reader looking for a recommendation for the book to read! This session is intended to offer an introduction to the Booker Prize titles and a space for all to approach and explore literary fiction.

About Dr. Ian Tan

Ian Tan is Assistant Professor of English Literature at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, and Associate Editor of The Wallace Stevens Journal. He is the author of Wallace Stevens and Martin Heidegger: Poetry as Appropriative Proximity, Wallace Stevens and the Contemporary Irish Novel: Form, Order, and Creative Un-Doing, Understanding Barbara Kingsolver, Mike McCormack and the Speculative Metaphysics of Fiction: Literature, Philosophy, and the Contemporary Possibilities of Phenomenological Worldhood, and editor of Wallace Stevens in Theory. His work on contemporary literature, philosophy, poetry, and film has been published in venues such as Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction, English Literary History, Journal of…