M. John Harrison, 81, becomes the oldest Booker Prize winner ever

Eighty-one years old, first time on the shortlist, and he walked away with the trophy. British author M. John Harrison has won the 2026 Booker Prize for his novel The End of Everything, and he is now the oldest person ever to win it.

What happened?

The winner was announced on Monday at a ceremony in London. The prize is worth £50,000 (about $67,000) and usually brings a big boost in sales and profile. Harrison is also reported to be the first science fiction author to win the award.

He beat five other writers on the shortlist: Marlon James, Douglas Stuart, Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry. Their books ranged from a queer epic set in 1980s Kingston to a campus satire in modern-day London. The judges had started with 163 entries.

What is the book about?

It is Harrison's 13th novel, and it is short: 198 pages. Beachcomber Phillip Tennent and his free-spirited aunt Marnie, who has dementia, live on the windswept English coast in the near future. An unnamed catastrophe has struck, and the European continent seems to have vanished.

Then come the iGhetti, mysterious objects that can imitate humans. Readers will recognise the echo of artificial intelligence. The dream-like story also nods to Brexit, Covid-19 and the creep of technology into daily life.

"Current affairs provided the themes and the satire," Harrison said. His question: what happens when all our expectations and explanations of the world become an ongoing disaster, but we still have to make a life?

Why did the judges pick it?

Judges' chair Mary Beard said the book came out ahead for its "extraordinary expert writing" and its "huge ambition". She called it "the politics of now seen through the lens of the future". One key point, she said, is that if such an apocalypse comes, it will be incomprehensible.

AI was on the judges' minds all year. They wanted a shortlist of distinctly human books that AI could not replicate, and Beard has said the prize will have to think about AI in publishing in the coming years.

Who is Harrison?

Born in Rugby in 1945, Harrison is a veteran of British science fiction. He is known for the Viriconium saga (1971–1984) and Light (2002), the first book of the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy. Beyond sci-fi circles he has been little known, which is why many critics called this recognition long overdue.

Last year's winner was David Szalay, with Flesh.