Rugby author M John Harrison becomes the oldest winner of the Booker Prize aged 81

Rugby author M John Harrison has become the oldest winner of the Booker Prize aged 81.

He received the accolade for his dystopian novel, The End Of Everything, which is set on the near-future Kent coast and navigates the mysterious invasion of shapeshifting entities amid a societal collapse.

The former Dunsmore School pupil (now known as Ashlawn School) has been lauded as “a genuinely original thinker, a genre-defying writer who takes ideas seriously” by chief executive of the Booker Prize Foundation, Gaby Wood.

Harrison, who was a judge for the Booker Prize in 2022, has received £50,000 and a trophy presented by last year’s winner, David Szalay, during a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London.

The End Of Everything, which has been described as “a dystopian satire that probes the limits of human understanding”, was the shortest book among the contenders with 198 pages.

The author, full name Michael John Harrison, previously discussed his Booker Prize nomination with BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and said: “I’m very excited that a fiction of this type should be shortlisted, and that it should have been mine.

“Because I have been working for 40 to 50 years to shift the balance, both as a novelist and as a critic.

“Why shouldn’t a well-written (work of science fiction) be considered to be literary fiction?”

Harrison, who was born in Rugby, has become the oldest winner in the history of the Booker Prize, surpassing The Handmaid’s Tale author Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she received the prestigious literary award in 2019.

The End Of Everything is his 13th novel, and the author has also published award-winning books such as Nova Swing and Climbers, as well as five short story collections and an “anti memoir”.