Harrison wins Booker for AI apocalypse novel

British author M. John Harrison on Monday won the Booker Prize for his enigmatic novel The End of Everything, which echoes concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) in a darkly satirical depiction of post-apocalyptic Britain.

Harrison, 81, became the oldest winner of the award, which comes with a ￡50,000 (US$67,163) prize and a boost in sales and profile for the winner.

A veteran of the British science-fiction literary scene, it was Harrison’s first time being shortlisted for the coveted prize, which critics have said was long overdue.

M. John Harrison poses with the trophy after winning the Booker Prize for his book The End of Everything during a ceremony in London yesterday.

Photo: AP

He beat shortlisted authors Marlon James, Douglas Stuart, Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry, whose entries ranged from a queer epic unfolding in 1980s Kingston to a campus satire set in modern-day London.

The End of Everything came out “ahead in terms of both its extraordinary expert writing, but also huge ambition,” chair of the judges Mary Beard told a news conference.

Harrison’s 13th novel follows the beachcomber Phillip Tennent and his dementia-stricken, free-spirited aunt Marnie, set in the near-future on the windswept English coast invaded by mysterious objects known as the iGhetti.

An unnamed catastrophe plunges the characters into a murky post-apocalyptic world where the European continent seems to have disappeared and the arrival of the iGhetti, which can imitate humans, evoke interactions with AI.

“One main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible,” Beard said, adding that the book spoke to the present “moment.”

“This is the politics of now seen through the lens of the future,” Beard said in a statement.

In dream-like episodes this tight, 198-page novel alludes to Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic and the invasion of technology into daily life.

As is often the case with Harrison’s writing, which has been described as genre-bending and singular, the plot counts less than the atmosphere, and the author’s elliptical and poetic style heightens the feeling of gradual collapse.

“Current affairs provided the themes and the satire,” Harrison said of his book. “What happens when all of our expectations and explanations of the world become an ongoing disaster, but we still have to make a life?”

The author previously said he was inspired by the 2008 financial crisis and wanted to write a novel about the “failure of explanation in society.”