M John Harrison Makes History as Oldest-Ever Booker Prize Winner for ‘The End of Everything’

At a London ceremony, the recipient of Britain’s most prestigious literary award was revealed by classicist Mary Beard, chair of the judging panel that also featured musician Jarvis Cocker.

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The End of Everything unfolds on England’s Channel coast in a near-future aftermath of an unspecified calamity, which has shattered society and ushered in enigmatic alien entities to Britain. The narrative follows a beachcomber living with his gun-toting aunt as he discovers a puzzling, shapeshifting artifact along the shore.

Mary Beard described the novel as “the politics of the present seen through the lens of the future,” exploring a society navigating a catastrophe it barely comprehends.

In remarks prior to the award, Harrison noted he had spent four to five decades attempting to shift the balance between novel and criticism, asking: “Why shouldn’t a well-written work of science fiction be considered literary fiction?”

The shortlist, six novels selected from a longlist of 163, presented a typically diverse mix of fiction. Included among the contenders were two former winners, Marlon James of Jamaica and Scot Douglas Stewart. A victory for either would have crowned them the fifth double Booker laureate, joining the ranks of J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Hilary Mantel, and Margaret Atwood.

Also featured on the shortlist were Pulitzer Prize winner Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard’s satirical campus novel Black Bag, and Rebecca Perry’s medieval-to-modern tale May We Feed the King.

Established in 1969, the Booker Prize is open to English-language novels published across the U.K. and Ireland, boasting a reputation for reshaping writers’ careers.

Past winners have included Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Bernardine Evaristo, and Arundhati Roy. Last year’s award went to “Flesh” by Hungarian-British writer David Szalay.

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