M. John Harrison becomes oldest Booker Prize winner
Harrison won for The End of Everything, a novel set on England’s Channel coast after a calamity brings alien entities to Britain.
M. John Harrison has won the 2026 Booker Prize for The End of Everything, becoming the award’s oldest recipient. Mary Beard, the classicist who chaired the judging panel, announced the result at a London ceremony on 9 November 2026.
The novel follows a beachcomber living with an armed aunt who finds a mysterious object capable of changing shape. Its setting is a near-future England where society has been fractured by an unexplained disaster. Beard described the book as an examination of contemporary politics through a future society struggling to understand its catastrophe.
Before the announcement, Harrison said he had spent 40 to 50 years seeking to change attitudes as both a novelist and critic. He questioned why accomplished science fiction should not also qualify as literary fiction. Musician Jarvis Cocker was among the judges.
The shortlist contained 6 novels selected from a longlist of 163, with previous winners Marlon James and Douglas Stewart among the contenders. Established in 1969, the Booker accepts English-language novels from any country, provided they are published in the UK and Ireland. Hungarian-British author David Szalay won the previous year with Flesh.
