Who is John Harrison? Meet British author who won Booker Prize 2026; here's what he said on ‘The End of Everything’

British author M. John Harrison won the 2026 Booker Prize for his novel The End of Everything. The winner was announced on Monday at a ceremony held at London’s Old Billingsgate, a former fish market.

This year’s judging committee was led by historian Mary Beard and included poet Raymond Antrobus, writer Patricia Lockwood, critic Rebecca Liu, and Jarvis Cocker, lead singer of the British band Pulp, as per CNN.

Historic win!

At 81, Harrison made history as the oldest-ever recipient of the award.

His win could also be considered the first time a science fiction novel has been awarded the prize, news agency ANI reported.

Though the 2024 winner “Orbital” takes place aboard a space station, the philosophical novel is murkier in its categorisation.

Regardless, this year marks a rare recognition of sci-fi, honouring an author who has published within the genre for more than five decades.

2026 Booker Prize: What will the winner get?

According to ANI, Harrison will take home prize money of GBP 50,000 (approximately $67,000).

“‘The End of Everything’ can be read as a thriller, a mystery, a satire, a dystopia, a road novel, a work of realism; whatever the reader is looking for can be found here, albeit told at a slant and with a twist,” the jury wrote in a Q&A published ahead of the announcement.

Who is John Harrison?

Harrison is a genre-defying British author and literary critic.

He sold his first story in 1965, and in 1969 joined the staff of the UK speculative fiction magazine New Worlds, where he edited books pages until 1978, according to his profile on the Booker Prize website.

He began his “Virconium” series in 1971, set on a futuristic Earth, and continued writing about the fictional city in novels and stories through 1984.

His novels include Climbers, which won the Boardman Tasker Prize for Mountain Literature in 1989; Nova Swing, which won the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 2007; and The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, which won the 2020 Goldsmiths Prize for innovation in fiction.

A collection of short stories, You Should Come With Me Now, was published in 2017, and a volume of selected stories written between 1970 and 2020 was published under the title Settling the World. 

He has reviewed a broad spread of fiction for the TLS, the Telegraph, the Guardian and the New York Times; co-authored a quartet of fantasy novels about talking cats; and ghostwritten on behalf of a legendary British rock climber. He was a judge of the Booker Prize 2022.

Among his other works, he completed the “Kefahuchi Tract” trilogy between 2002 and 2012. This year was the first time he was nominated for the Booker Prize.

John Harrison: 'I feel like a proper writer at last, totally lacking in confidence'

Here's what he said in his speech after winning Bookers Prize:

"This is entitled acceptance. I really didn't expect to be up here this evening. I I honestly didn't at the end here at the end of everything, but here I am.

You talk glibly about your life being changed, but it's weird when it happens.

I feel like a proper writer at last, totally lacking in confidence

Prizes like this one, not that there are any prizes quite like the Booker, are so important in a landscape of industrialised fiction.

So, it's an honor to have been on a short list of such remarkable players as Luke, Rebecca, Marlon, Douglas, and Elizabeth.

Thanks a lot, you guys.

Also, my thanks, obviously, to the Booker Foundation, to Gabby Wood and her team, and to Hannah, Zoe, and Lily [jurors]. And I know from my own experience in 2022 that judging is as tiring as it is fun. Indeed, sometimes more tiring than it is fun.

So, I'm especially grateful for the efforts of this year's panel of judges chaired by the inimitable Mary Beard, Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Leo, and Patricia Lockwood. So, thanks to you guys, too.

Really, no one writes a novel without help. I've had so much support across the last 40 or 50 years that at this point my input seems to me to be the least of it.