British author M. John Harrison has won the 2026 Booker Prize with his dystopian novel The End of Everything, marking a historic breakthrough for science fiction literature and making him the oldest recipient of the prestigious award.
The 81-year-old author received the £50,000 prize on Monday, November 9, during a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London, where last year's winner, David Szalay, presented him with the trophy.
Reacting to the win, Harrison said the recognition had left him struggling to process the moment despite his decades-long writing career.
“You talk glibly about your life being changed but it’s weird when it happens. I feel like a proper writer at last, totally lacking in confidence,” he said.
Reflecting on the bleak world portrayed in his novel, Harrison acknowledged its dark outlook while suggesting that its ending offered a sense of resolution.
“It's a grim world and it will keep on being grim and there's something distinctly weird about it. But at the end of things, there may be some kind of, I won't say hope, but closure.”
Harrison's victory marks the first time an author who emerged from the established science fiction world has won the Booker Prize, according to Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation.
While previous winners have incorporated elements of science fiction into their writing, Wood described Harrison's achievement as a historic moment for the genre, recognising his contribution to literature across a career spanning six decades.
The End of Everything is Harrison's 13th novel and follows Phillip Tennent, a beachcomber surviving along England's Kent coast with his elderly aunt, Marnie, in a near-future world devastated by an unexplained catastrophe.
The story unfolds against the collapse of social order and the mysterious invasion of shapeshifting entities known as the iGhetti. As the characters struggle to understand their increasingly uncertain surroundings, Phillip discovers an unusual object on the beach that develops and begins communicating with those around it.
The 198-page novel combines dystopian fiction, political satire and elements of science fiction to examine humanity's struggle to find meaning and maintain ordinary life amid widespread uncertainty.
Chair of the 2026 judging panel Mary Beard praised the novel for its originality and its reflection of contemporary society through an imagined future.
Beard described it as "the politics of now seen through the lens of the future", noting how the story explores what happens when established explanations of the world collapse and people are forced to adapt.
The judges unanimously selected Harrison's novel following deliberations over six shortlisted books. The panel considered 163 submissions published in the United Kingdom and Ireland between October 2025 and September 2026.
Harrison faced competition from several established literary figures, including Marlon James, whose novel The Disappearers was shortlisted, Elizabeth Strout's The Things We Never Say and Douglas Stuart's John of John.
The shortlist also featured Black Bag by Luke Kennard and May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry.
The victory was Harrison's first Booker Prize nomination, despite his extensive writing career. His previous works include Climbers, which won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1989, Nova Swing, which received the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2007, and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, which won the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize.
Harrison also becomes the oldest author to win the Booker Prize, surpassing Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she jointly received the award in 2019 for The Testaments.
The achievement also marks the first Booker Prize victory for independent publisher Serpent's Tail, an imprint of Profile Books, adding another milestone to the 2026 awards.
