Booker Prize winner, 2026
The End of Everything
Serpent's Tail, June 2026. Hardback, ebook and audiobook.
Years after a crisis nobody can quite name, Phillip Tennent makes his living at the tideline, picking over what the Channel washes up. Then he pulls something out of the water that won't stay one shape, and has to carry it inland.
"The politics of now seen through the lens of the future."
Mary Beard, chair of the Booker Prize 2026 judges
About
M. John Harrison was born in Rugby in 1945. He sold his first story in the mid 1960s, moved to London, and became literary editor of New Worlds, the magazine at the centre of the British New Wave.
Since then he has written thirteen novels, among them the Viriconium sequence, Climbers, the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again. He spent a decade in the Peak District, climbing and writing, and has reviewed for the Guardian, the TLS and the New York Times.
In 2026, at 81, he became the oldest writer to win the Booker Prize, and the first to win it with a work of science fiction.
Books
Novels
- The End of EverythingBooker Prize
- The Sunken Land Begins to Rise AgainGoldsmiths Prize
- Empty SpaceKefahuchi Tract 3
- Nova SwingKefahuchi Tract 2
- LightKefahuchi Tract 1
- Signs of Life
- The Course of the Heart
- ClimbersBoardman Tasker Prize
- In ViriconiumViriconium 3
- A Storm of WingsViriconium 2
- The Centauri Device
- The Pastel CityViriconium 1
- The Committed Men
Stories
- Settling the WorldSelected stories
- You Should Come With Me Now
- Things That Never Happen
- Travel Arrangements
- Viriconium Nights
- The Ice Monkey
- The Machine in Shaft Ten
Nonfiction
- Wish I Was HereAnti-memoir
- Parietal GamesCriticism
Awards
- Booker Prize2026
- Fellow, Royal Society of Literature2025
- Goldsmiths Prize2020
- Honorary D.Litt, University of Warwick2016
- Arthur C. Clarke Award2007
- Philip K. Dick Award2007
- James Tiptree Jr. Award2002
- Boardman Tasker Prize1989
"No one alive can write sentences as he can."
Olivia Laing, The Guardian
Press
The Guardian, 9 November 2026The End of Everything wins the 2026 Booker Prize Associated Press, 10 November 2026Harrison on genre, the win and fixing the house Euronews, 9 November 2026Oldest ever winner of the Booker Prize The A.V. Club, 10 November 2026Science fiction wins its first Booker The Booker Prizes, 9 November 2026Everything you need to know about the winning novel Open Magazine, November 2026A dystopian satire takes the prize Shakespeare and Company podcastIn conversation about The End of EverythingNews by email
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