John Harrison wins 2026 Booker Prize at 81
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on L’essentiel
British author Michael John Harrison, 81, has won the 2026 Booker Prize for his novel “The End of Everything” at the ceremony held in London. He thus becomes the oldest winner of the literary award, worth £50,000, according to AFP.
British author Michael John Harrison, known as M. John Harrison, won the 2026 Booker Prize in London on Monday evening for his post-apocalyptic novel “The End of Everything”, according to L'essentiel. Aged 81, the science-fiction writer becomes the oldest winner in the history of the literary prize, worth £50,000, or nearly €60,000.
Selected for the first time, Michael John Harrison prevailed over Jamaican Marlon James and British-American Douglas Stuart, both previous Booker Prize winners, in 2015 and 2020 respectively. Jury chair and historian Mary Beard praised the “immense ambition” of Harrison's 13th novel, whose plot is set in an England hit by a mysterious catastrophe.
In the novel, Philip Tennent survives by salvaging objects washed ashore on the Kent coast before discovering an artefact capable of transforming itself and imitating humans. The book addresses Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of technology into everyday life, and has not yet been translated into French.
