Black Bag

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A penniless and out-of-work actor picks up a job working for Dr Blend, a university professor who is conducting a psychological experiment. How will Dr Blend's students react to someone zipped into an oversized bag, sitting at the back of the lecture hall over a series of autumn term lectures? The role, eagerly accepted, soon has unexpected consequences.

A professor of post-humanism develops research questions of her own, in particular, can you love someone secreted away inside a black bag? Meanwhile, the actor's childhood friend and flatmate forms a vision for monetising this new situation.

A warped campus novel, an investigation into the crisis of masculinity and an off-kilter love story, Black Bag is a firework of a novel: blazingly funny and profoundly humane.

'The funniest and smartest novel I've read in a while' Zadie Smith

Author: Luke Kennard

Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2026

Published on 12 Mar 2026 by John Murray.