At 81, Michael John Harrison has become the oldest person to win the Booker Prize, but his victory is historic for another reason. He is the first science fiction writer to win the prestigious literary award.
His novel, The End of Everything, was announced as the 2026 winner at a ceremony in London on 9 November, earning him the £50,000 prize.
The achievement is not that science fiction has never appeared on the Booker shortlist or in a winning novel. It is that a writer whose career has been rooted in the genre has now taken its biggest literary prize.
Published by Serpent’s Tail on 18 June 2026, the 198-page novel is available in the UK in print and digital editions, with prices varying by retailer. The hardback is listed at £16.99.
Treasure Ayanfe Adetula
Why is Harrison’s Booker win historic?
The significance of Harrison’s win lies in the distinction between a novel that uses science fiction elements and a writer whose career has been shaped by the genre. Previous Booker winners have explored speculative ideas, but Harrison comes from a long-established science fiction background, making his victory a notable moment for the genre.
Gaby Wood, chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, described Harrison as “the first Booker winner to have emerged from the bona fide SF world”. She called the achievement “a historic win” for a writer whose career spans decades.
The award was presented by 2025 winner David Szalay at Old Billingsgate in London. Harrison was selected from a shortlist of six after judges considered 163 eligible books. The decision was unanimous, according to the Booker Prize Foundation.
What is the end of everything about?
The novel is set on the Kent coast a few decades into the future, after an unexplained catastrophe has disrupted society. Phillip Tennent makes a living collecting objects washed ashore, while his elderly aunt Marnie tries to maintain some sense of normal life in a world where government and familiar social structures have largely broken down.
Their situation becomes more complicated when Phillip discovers a strange, changing creature known as an iGhetti. These mysterious entities have arrived following the catastrophe, but Harrison does not provide a clear explanation of what they are or why they are there.
The book uses this uncertain world to explore familiar concerns, including political instability, environmental damage, technology, and the difficulty of knowing what is true.
Harrison told the Booker Prize that current affairs provided the themes for his satire, asking: “what happens when all of our expectations and explanations of the world become an ongoing disaster, but we still have to make a life?”
Judge Mary Beard described it as “the politics of now seen through the lens of the future”. This explains why the novel appealed to the panel. Its science fiction examines how people respond when the systems they depend on stop making sense.
Why has science fiction struggled for Booker recognition?
Harrison's win brings attention to a long-running divide in publishing. Science fiction has a substantial literary history, but it has often been separated from the category of literary fiction, particularly in discussions around major literary awards.
Several Booker winners have explored speculative ideas. Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, for example, imagined a dystopian future, while Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go explored cloning and the meaning of humanity.
More recently, Samantha Harvey won the 2024 Booker Prize for Orbital, a novel about astronauts aboard the International Space Station. However, these works were not necessarily presented or received as traditional science fiction.
Harrison's achievement is different because he has spent his career within the genre itself. He began publishing stories in the 1960s and later worked on the British speculative fiction magazine New Worlds, which was associated with the science fiction New Wave.
His previous work includes Nova Swing, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2007, and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, which received the Goldsmiths Prize in 2020.
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