British author M. John Harrison won the 2026 Booker Prize for his dystopian novel The End during a ceremony in London on Monday, according to The Irish Times.
At 81, Harrison becomes the oldest winner in the prize’s history, surpassing Margaret Atwood, who was a co-winner in 2019 at the age of 79 for The Testaments, according to The Globe and Mail. The award comes with a £50,000 prize.
The story centers on the beachcomber Phillip Tennent and his dementia-stricken aunt Marnie, who travel through borderlands and ocean mirages while encountering a puzzling, shape-shifting artefact.
She described the work as the politics of now seen through the lens of the future
and noted that “what he does is to say, when the catastrophe comes, you won’t know what’s happening.”
ahead in terms of both its extraordinary expert writing, but also huge ambition,
Historian Mary Beard, who chaired the judging panel
Harrison, who was born in Rugby, England, in 1945, has written numerous works including the Viriconium saga and Light, the first volume of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy. His award-winning novels also include Climbers, which won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1989, Nova Swing, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2007, and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, which won the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize.
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, noted that the foundation’s rules no longer mention literary fiction because all fiction is literary. Harrison told reporters after winning that the validation gives authors permission to be what they are without a label stuck on their forehead, adding that he will likely spend the prize money on home repairs because his house is always falling down.
The End is published by Serpent’s Tail, marking the publisher's first Booker victory.
Earlier coverage: 2026 Booker Shortlist: Six Novels, James and Stuart Chase Second Wins
More on John Harrison
M John Harrison has won the £50,000 Booker Prize 2026 for The End of Everything (Serpent’s Tail), with the novel described by chair of judges Mary Beard as a “book that turns you upside down, raises a wry smile and, surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge…
#BREAKING: At 81 years old, M John Harrison has become the oldest winner of the Booker Prize, worth 50,000 British pounds ($95,000). https://t.co/LwcVOlbDhs
