M John Harrison wins Booker Prize for post-apocalyptic novel

Summarised from 4 outlets · Updated 9 Nov, 22:57 · Archive

M John Harrison, 81, has won the Booker Prize for The End of Everything, becoming the oldest winner in the award's history.

M John Harrison has won the Booker Prize for The End of Everything at the age of 81, becoming the oldest winner in the award's history. He received the £50,000 prize at a ceremony in London on Monday, surpassing Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the prize in 2019.

This was Harrison's first Booker Prize nomination despite a career spanning six decades. He has published 13 novels, five short story collections and an anti-memoir since he began writing in the 1960s. Booker Prize chief executive Gaby Wood said he is "the first Booker winner to have emerged from the bona fide SF world", calling it "a historic win, for a writer whose decades of work are lightly worn on every page".

The End of Everything is set a few decades from now on the Kent coast, years after an unexplained disaster has caused British society to collapse. The 198-page novel, the shortest on the shortlist, follows Phillip Tennent and his ageing aunt Marnie as they attempt to survive alongside mysterious, shape-changing beings called the iGhetti, whose origins and intentions are never explained. France 24 reports that the novel echoes concerns about artificial intelligence in its depiction of post-apocalyptic Britain.

Mary Beard, chair of the judges, said the decision was unanimous after a full day of discussion. She described it as "a challenging read" that "turns you upside down, raises a wry smile – and surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge of optimism". Beard noted that "one main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible" and that the novel speaks to the present moment through the lens of the future.

The novel has divided opinion among readers. It has been described as both "bleak but brilliant" and "dreamlike and baffling". While Harrison dislikes genre labels, he has been called "the titan of literary science fiction".

How it is being reported

• Booker Prize awarded to 'genre-defying' 81-year-old writerM John Harrison, 81, has become the oldest winner of the Booker Prize. The "genre-defying" writer was awarded Britain's most prestigious literary prize for his dystopian novel, The End of Everything. The book, set on a near-future Kent coast invaded by mysterious shapeshifting lifeforms, has divided readers but was selected from a shortlist of six by a five-member judging panel as this year's best. Dame Mary Beard, a classicist and broadcaster who chaired the panel, said the science-fiction novel "stood out above all the other amazing, wonderful, and mind-blowing books we were looking at".…GB News · 10 Nov, 00:50
• 'Baffling but brilliant' post-apocalyptic novel The End of Everything wins Booker PrizeM John Harrison becomes the oldest ever winner of the prestigious literary award at the age of 81.BBC News · 9 Nov, 22:16
• UK writer M. John Harrison wins Booker prize for AI-tinged apocalyptic novelUK author M. John Harrison won the Booker Prize on Monday for his enigmatic novel "The End of Everything", which echoes concerns about artificial intelligence in a darkly satirical depiction of post-apocalyptic Britain.France 24 · 9 Nov, 22:09
• M John Harrison becomes first science fiction author to win the Booker prizeThe 81-year-old’s postapocalyptic novel The End of Everything takes home the £50,000 award Guardian fiction editor Justine Jordan on M John Harrison’s win: A visionary writer gets the recognition he deserves Eighty-one-year-old M John Harrison has won the Booker prize for The End of Everything , a postapocalyptic novel set on a near-future Kent coast, becoming the oldest winner in the award’s history. Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, said that while plenty of previous winners had dabbled in science fiction, Harrison’s was “the first Booker winner to have emerged…The Guardian · 9 Nov, 22:00

In this story: M John Harrison · Booker Prize Foundation · Margaret Atwood · Mary Beard · Kent

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