British author M John Harrison has won the 2026 Booker Prize for his novel The End of Everything, becoming, at 81, the oldest writer ever to receive the award. The winner was announced at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London on Monday, 9 November.
Harrison receives £50,000 and the Booker trophy. The Booker Prize Foundation said he is also the first winner to come from the established science fiction tradition, according to The National. It was his first nomination for the prize.
A short novel about a future nobody understands
The End of Everything is Harrison’s 13th novel and, at 198 pages, was the shortest book on this year’s shortlist. It is set on the Kent coast in a near-future Britain where government barely functions after an unexplained catastrophe linked to shape-shifting entities called the iGhetti.
The story follows Phillip Tennent, a beachcomber, and his elderly aunt Marnie. When Phillip finds an unusual object on the shore, events around them become steadily more unsettling.
Harrison has said the book was partly inspired by the 2008 financial crisis and by his interest in how societies react to disasters they cannot fully understand. Judges’ chair Mary Beard said one of the book’s main points is that such an apocalypse, if it comes, “will be incomprehensible”.
According to HNGN, Harrison said on receiving the award: “I feel like a proper writer at last, totally lacking in confidence.”
The judges and the shortlist
The judging panel was chaired by classicist and broadcaster Mary Beard. She was joined by poet Raymond Antrobus, musician Jarvis Cocker, journalist and critic Rebecca Liu, and novelist Patricia Lockwood. The National reported that the decision was unanimous and that 163 eligible books were considered.
The six-book shortlist was announced in September. Alongside Harrison, it included:
- Marlon James, The Disappearers
- Douglas Stuart, John of John
- Luke Kennard, Black Bag
- Elizabeth Strout, The Things We Never Say
- Rebecca Perry, May We Feed the King
Each shortlisted author receives £2,500, according to the Booker Prizes website.
Six decades of writing
Born in 1945, Harrison sold his first story in 1965 and edited the books pages of the science fiction magazine New Worlds from 1969 to 1978. His early work includes The Pastel City, the first of his Viriconium books, and he returned to wide attention in 2002 with Light, the first part of a space opera trilogy.
His earlier honours include the Boardman Tasker Prize for Climbers in 1989, the Arthur C Clarke Award for Nova Swing in 2007 and the Goldsmiths Prize for The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again in 2020. He has also worked as a literary critic for several British and American publications and served as a Booker judge in 2022.
The novel is published in Britain by Serpent’s Tail, an imprint of Profile Books, and this is the publisher’s first Booker win, HNGN reported.
What to know
- Winner: M John Harrison, The End of Everything
- Record: Oldest Booker winner at 81; the previous oldest was Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the 2019 prize
- Prize: £50,000
- Announced: Monday, 9 November, at Old Billingsgate, London
The novel is also published in the United States by Riverhead. Readers in the UAE who follow the literary calendar can also catch up on our Sharjah Book Fair 2026 guide.
Sources: The National, HNGN, The Booker Prizes
