Booker Award awarded to M. John Harrison’s “The End of Everything”

O this year's Booker award was awarded to the post-apocalyptic book “The End of Everything”, by 81-year-old British writer M. John Harrison, who won the award for the first nomination, announced the organization today.

With a literary career of six decades, “The End of Everything” is the 13th novel by M. John Harrison, which has no book published in Portugal.

The president of the jury, historian Mary Beard, said, quoted in a statement, that “The End of Everything” portrays “the policy of now through the lens of the future”, with a book “that turns you inside out, raises a slight smile – and, surprisingly, given the issue in question, leaves you with a little optimism.”.

The work – the shortest among the finalists, with 198 pages – is a “stabilizing and satirical dystopia” that follows a man dedicated to searching for valuables on the beach, together with his armed aunt, “as they try to survive together on the coast of Kent [in the south of the United Kingdom] in the near future.”.

“The narrative has as its backdrop the collapse of society and the mysterious invasion of metamorphic entities called iGhetti,” added the organization in the statement that Harrison spent 60 years “cultivating a literary career that challenges the label.”.

In an interview with the BBC, Harrison explained that the initial inspiration was the financial crisis of 2008, and then decided to write a novel about “the failure of explanation in society”.

The list of six finalists was also composed of “The Disappearers”, by Marlon James, “Black Bag”, by Luke Kennard, “May We Feed The King”, by Rebecca Perry, “The Things We Never Say”, by Elizabeth Strut, and “John of John”, by Douglas Stuart.

The jury of this issue of the Booker was composed by Mary Beard, Raymond Antrobus, Jarvis Cocker, Rebecca Liu and Patricia Lockwood.

The winner is awarded a monetary prize of £50,000 (about €58,400).

In 2025, the Booker award was awarded to writer David Szalay, by the novel “Carne”, already published in Portugal by Clock d’Água.