M. John Harrison wins Booker Prize for The End of Everything

M. John Harrison has never sold well in the U.S., but the truth is we don't know what his potential readership might be because he never had a consistent or highend lit publisher here. In the wake of the Booker, I hope Riverhead has plans to publish his backlist, perhaps with a unifying book design.

“No one should take this advice, but if you put yourself in a position where writing is all you’ve got to make a living with, that really does focus you amazingly.” I spoke to M John Harrison about Ballard, money, Iain Banks, rock-climbing, and how fans of his fiction become “users for life”:

So M. John Harrison has won the Booker for a work of weird fiction and now you're scrambling to read more about what weird fiction is, or does, or was, or whatever? Do I have some essays for you:

Of course The End of Everything is not the first SFF novel to win the Booker, but it is absurd to pretend that there aren't meaningful differences between M. John Harrison, and the career path that led him to this point, and other authors of Booker-winning fantastical fiction.

A little funny seeing people talking about m john harrison winning the Booker at 81 like ~it's never too late to write~... I do believe it's never too late but I think the man who spent roughly the last 60 years in an extraordinary effort to hone his craft is not a great example of this lol

As the book world is rightly celebrating M. John Harrison at the moment, here's a rundown of his early work I've covered on my site. The Pastel City (1971). The 1st in the Viriconium sequence. I found it a delightfully subversive take on the genre. sciencefictionruminations.com/2016/11/21/b...

Delighted by this. I've not read The End of Everything yet but M John Harrison is a superb writer, a true chronicler of the strangeness of the human experience for whom the label 'science fiction' (or any label) is way too reductive. Feels to me like the most inspired Booker choice for a long time.

headline should totally have been “first Weird Girl Lit book to win the booker prize.” really get the people going

"The aristocratic thugs of the High City whistle as they go about their factional games among the derelict observatories and abandoned fortifications at Lowth." And at last we get to say "from the Booker Award-winning author..."

This is not a drill, our sister imprint @serpents-tail.bsky.social has a #BookerPrize winning author in M. John Harrison for his spectacular speculative literary fiction novel THE END OF EVERYTHING! The judges say they were looking for a book “only a human could write” Huge congratulations Mike!

M. John Harrison's novel The End of Everything has won the 2026 Booker Prize! You can read our review here:

Cracking thread, this, on what's so utterly sui generis and yet genre-deep about the immense Mike Harrison, winner of the Booker Prize. @himself.bsky.social 's piece later in the week on it all is something to really look forward to. And Sam Leith's 2025 interview with Mike is a great intro:

"[Apart from all the other science fiction authors who have won the Booker prize] M John Harrison becomes first science fiction author to win the Booker prize."

All hail 👑the triumph of the New Weird.📚 M John Harrison receiving his trophy from last year's winner David Szalay. #BookerPrize2026. Huge admiration for my hardworking BBC colleagues who made last night's #BBCFrontRow OB so special. Catch up 🎧here: www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Good morning on the day after the triumph of M John Harrison at the Booker Prize last night! Taught me to climb, we owned 2 cats and wrote 4 novels together (as Gabriel King) and his book is a haunting little masterpiece. The whole sff community is celebrating! #books 💙📚