It was Harrison's first time being shortlisted for the Booker, which critics said was long overdue after a six-decade career. He was previously a Booker judge himself in 2022.
He beat a star-studded shortlist of six:
- Marlon James - The Disappearers - described as a queer epic unfolding in 1980s Kingston
- Douglas Stuart - John of John
- Elizabeth Strout - The Things We Never Say
- Luke Kennard - Black Bag- a campus satire set in modern-day London
- Rebecca Perry - May We Feed the King
The winner was announced on Monday night, 9 November, at Old Billingsgate in London. Harrison receives £50,000 and the Iris trophy. Each shortlisted author receives £2,500.
Chair of judges Mary Beard said the panel spent a whole day debating and reached a unanimous decision, describing the book as "ahead in terms of both its extraordinary expert writing, but also huge ambition" and as "an apocalypse novel with a twinge of optimism" and "the politics of now seen through the lens of the future."
At 198 pages, “The End of Everything” was the shortest book on the shortlist. Published by independent Serpent's Tail, it is set in the near-future on the Kent coast, decades after an unexplained catastrophe, where a scavenger hunts for artefacts left by mysterious entities called the iGhetti.
Harrison, author of the Viriconium stories, _Light_, _Nova Swing_ and _The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again_ (Goldsmiths Prize 2020), is the first traditional science-fiction writer to win the Booker. He surpasses Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the prize in 2019, to become the oldest winner.
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