As a bookish/booky person I’m always interested to see the books the Booker Prize committee have on their lists – first the long list, then whittled down top the short list, and then at last – the winner!! This year the long list was this:
- Chloe Aridjis – The Shadow of the Object
- Emma Cline – Switzy
- Makenna Goodman – Helen of Nowhere
- M. John Harrison – The End of Everything
- Marlon James – The Disappearers
- Luke Kennard – Black Bag
- Kenan Orhan – The Renovation
- Rebecca Perry – May We Feed the King
- Gwendoline Riley – The Palm House
- Elizabeth Strout – The Things We Never Say
- Douglas Stuart – John of John
- Djamel White – All Them Dogs
- Missouri Williams – The Vivisectors
Now I have to confess, that although I do read a great deal, and in my own way read quite widely, most of the writers on the list were unknown to me. The only author I had actually read was Elizabeth Strout, and although she is a favourite of some of my book club friends, I’ve always struggled to read her work. I had heard of “John of John” and “May We Feed the King“, but they didn’t really appeal to me. However, I was interested to know who the 2026 Booker prize winner would be, even though I was so ignorant of the contenders, I watched the presentation on TV as Mary Beard announced the winner and presented the prize to… M. John Harrison, an elderly gent who was virtually virtually unknown outside very literary circles. This is what Wikipedia says of him:
Michael John Harrison (born 26 July 1945), known for publication purposes primarily as M. John Harrison, is an English author and literary critic. His work includes the Viriconium sequence of novels and short stories (1971–1984), Climbers (1989), and the Kefahuchi Tract trilogy, which consists of Light (2002), Nova Swing (2006) and Empty Space (2012). His novel The End of Everything won the Booker Prize in 2026, making him the oldest writer to get this prize.He is widely considered one of the major stylists of modern fantasy and science fiction, and a “genre contrarian”.Robert Macfarlane has said: “Harrison is best known as one of the restless fathers of modern SF, but to my mind he is among the most brilliant novelists writing today, with regard to whom the question of genre is an irrelevance.” The Times Literary Supplement described him as “a singular stylist” and the Literary Review called him “a witty and truly imaginative writer”. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (FRSL) in 2025.
Having watched the presentation and what was said about him, and his gracious reply, I was intrigued. and looked at his book. Further intrigued, I bought the e-book version. I began to read it as soon as I got into bed last night, and gosh, I was hooked!! I’m not sure I quite grasp all of it, it’s quite mind-boggling in a way, but he writes so clearly and so cleanly (if that is a way of describing writing style as opposed to content) that I stayed up way too late, and only reluctantly stopped to settle down and go to sleep.
I shall continue reading tonight, and no doubt will write more about “The End To Everything” when I have finished it.
