Published : 10 Nov 2026, 11:12 PM
Updated : 10 Nov 2026, 11:12 PM
British author M John Harrison has become the oldest-ever winner of the Booker Prize, taking the £50,000 award at the age of 81 for his post-apocalyptic novel “The End of Everything”.
Harrison was announced as the winner at a ceremony in London on Monday, marking a major milestone in a writing career spanning six decades. He has published 13 novels, five short story collections and an “anti-memoir”, the BBC reported.
The novel is set in the aftermath of an unexplained catastrophe that brings British society to collapse. It follows a man and his aunt as they try to survive on the south-east English coast amid the arrival of mysterious alien beings.
The book has divided readers, with some critics praising its unusual style, while many others have found it difficult to follow, the report said.
Dame Mary Beard, who chaired the judging panel, acknowledged that it was demanding fiction but said some of the best writing required readers to be challenged.
“It's a challenging read, but some of the best fiction is challenging,” she said.
Beard also described the novel as a work that could unsettle readers while leaving them with “a twinge of optimism”.
According to the BBC, Harrison deliberately left much of the catastrophe unexplained to give readers the same sense of confusion experienced by the characters. He said the book was intended to reflect the difficulty of understanding the constant flow of information in modern life.
“’The End of Everything’ is about trying to live as if nothing has gone wrong. It's a disaster story in which the disaster is the failure to comprehend,” Harrison said.
Booker Prize chief executive Gaby Wood called Harrison “a genuinely original thinker” and a writer who takes ideas seriously. She also noted that he was the first winner to emerge from the established science fiction world.
The BBC noted that Harrison had overtaken Margaret Atwood as the oldest Booker winner, despite resisting labels such as science fiction and fantasy.
The other shortlisted authors were Marlon James, Luke Kennard, Rebecca Perry, Elizabeth Strout and Douglas Stuart. The judges reached a unanimous decision after a day of discussion, Beard said.
Launched in 1969, the Booker Prize recognises the best novel written in English and published in the UK or Ireland.
