John of John | Douglas Stuart | Booker Prize Shortlist 2026

Out of money and with little to show for his art school education, John-Calum Macleod takes the ferry home to the island of Harris to find that not much has changed except for him. In the windswept croft where he grew up, Cal resumes his old life, caught between the two poles of his childhood: his father John, a sheep farmer, weaver, and pillar of their local Presbyterian church, and his Glaswegian grandmother Ella, who has kept a faltering peace with her son-in-law for decades.

While Cal wonders if any lonely men might be found on the barren hillsides of home, John is dismayed by his son’s long hair and how he seems unwilling to be Saved. As the seasons pass, everything is poised to change as the threads holding together the fragile community become increasingly entangled.

Douglas Stuart was born and raised in Glasgow. After graduating from the Royal College of Art, he moved to New York, where he began a career in fashion design. Shuggie Bain, his first novel, won the Booker Prize and both 'Debut of the Year' and 'Book of the Year' at the British Book Awards. It was named one of the '25 best novels of the 21st century' by the Sunday Times. His second novel, Young Mungo, was a number one Sunday Times Bestseller. John of John was shortlisted for both the Orwell Prize and the Booker Prize in 2026.