M. John Harrison’s The End of Everything Wins the 2026 Booker Prize
Learn about the winner of The Booker Prize 2026, The End of Everything by M. John Harrison.
It's official – a huge congratulations to M. John Harrison, whose extraordinary novel The End of Everything has been named the winner of the 2026 Booker Prize!
The End of Everything is a genre-defying, dystopian satire that takes readers into a strange and unsettling vision of the future, exploring the limits of human understanding and what happens when the world as we know it falls apart.
Set on the south coast of England, decades after a mysterious catastrophe, the novel follows Phillip Tennent and his elderly aunt Marnie as they navigate a world where social norms have unravelled, familiar rules no longer apply and people are simply trying to make sense of what has happened.
The judges were unanimous in their decision, with chair Mary Beard praising Harrison's extraordinary achievement. Describing the novel as one that 'turns you upside down, raises a wry smile – and surprisingly, given the subject matter, leaves you with a twinge of optimism', Beard also called it 'the politics of now seen through the lens of the future'.
The win marks a significant moment for both Harrison and the literary world. At 81, he becomes the oldest author ever to win the Booker Prize, and the first winner to emerge from the world of science fiction. It is also a first Booker Prize win for independent publisher Serpent's Tail.
And the celebrations don't stop there!
We're equally delighted to see May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry recognised as one of this year's six outstanding shortlisted novels.
A wonderfully original and evocative work, Perry's novel weaves together two lives: a contemporary museum curator, who becomes increasingly absorbed in recreating the world of a medieval palace, and a reluctant king whose precarious reign is threatened by whispers and intrigue at court. Moving between past and present, the novel explores history, power, memory and the stories we choose to tell.
The Booker judges praised Perry's 'wonderfully enticing, and eye-opening, combination of themes', highlighting the novel's extraordinary delicacy and its exploration of the fragile boundary between past and present. The recognition is particularly exciting following Perry's recent win of the 2026 Waterstones Debut Fiction Prize.
Congratulations to M. John Harrison, Rebecca Perry and everyone involved in bringing these exceptional books to readers.
The End of Everything
by M. John Harrison
A slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding from the peerless master of contemporary fiction.
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