Congratulations to M John Harrison, 2026 Booker Prize winner for The End of Everything
.The nice thing about an award like this is that it can put a challenging book like this in front of readers who would never otherwise encounter it. I am not the sort of reader who is steeped in the traditions that he was exploring, nor did I do extensive external research into his purpose. His delightfully idiosyncratic novel demands a thorough context. But I am cheered that the jury was willing to make a daring choice.
I ranked and reviewed each of the shortlisted novels. I also paired each novel with a classic. The winner of the 2026 Booker Prize was announced November 9, 2026 at 9:45 PM GMT. You can watch the recording of the ceremony at The Booker Prizes YouTube Channel.
| 6th Place | |
|---|---|
| Contestant | The End of Everything by M. John Harrison |
| My Review | Imprecise Peculiarity and Painstaking Banality at The End of Everything |
| Summary | I enjoyed Harrison’s indulgent weirdness at times, but I wondered why he seemed to conceal his freak flag while rambling on ad nauseum about modern suburban settings. |
| Classic Pairing | The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams |
| Why | Tonally miles apart, but both create apocalyptic futures with aliens who flippantly offer replacements for our core humanity. |
| 5th Place | |
| Contestant | The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout |
| My Review | Elizabeth Strout Tries the Patience of a Saint |
| Summary | Bold in its politics but mild in its artistic ambition. |
| Classic Pairing | Middlemarch by George Eliot |
| Why | Both present their protagonists as everyday saints and use recent political events as backdrops. Both divided readers along generational lines. |
| 4th Place | |
| Contestant | Black Bag by Luke Kennard |
| My Review | The Alphas, Betas, and Gammas of Masculinity in Black Bag |
| Summary | Every hilarious page serves its narrative throughline about what has become of straight male identity in the wake of feminist reckonings. |
| Classic Pairing | The Double by Fyodor Dostoevsky |
| Why | Kennard’s story begins to realize its surreal potential when Black Bag chases down his Double. The authors both cozy the reader with familiarity before things get weird. |
| 3rd Place | |
| Contestant | May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry |
| My Review | The Poet as Novelist and Historian in May We Feed the King |
| Summary | The first novel by an experienced poet has an evocative core but an uneven historiological frame. |
| Classic Pairing | Memories of the Ford Administration by John Updike |
| Why | The parallels between Perry’s hated monarch and Updike’s reconstruction of James Buchanan, by consensus the worst president in U.S. history, illuminate May We Feed the King in numerous ways. |
| 2nd Place | |
| Contestant | The Disappearers by Marlon James |
| My Review | Is The Disappearers the Beloved of the Gay Experience? |
| Summary | Marlon James's voice is distinctively and historically queer in its quicksilver wit, its showy intellect, and its unfailingly compassionate resilience. It flies defiantly against unremitting gales of bigotry, in unflinching affirmation of a people who refuse to spend another day hiding from themselves. |
| Classic Pairing | Beloved by Toni Morrison |
| Why | Beloved is as close as Morrison comes to a definitive statement on slavery, which haunts all of her works. The Disappearers is a comprehensive exploration of the gay experience in homophobic Jamaica. Beloved is the fullest realization of Toni Morrison’s life’s work and the lasting community touchstone that Marlon James is reaching for. |
| 1st Place | |
| Contestant | John of John by Douglas Stuart |
| My Review | Staying is The Longest Journey |
| Summary | In sheer wattage per page, Douglas Stuart’s richly textured, deeply pained, and inerrantly true novel was the most moving and wryly satisfying book of the year. |
| Classic Pairing | The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster |
| Why | The fulfilling acceptance Rickie finds at Cambridge, and his growing skill as a writer, are the stakes of Cal’s sacrificial return to the island. Rickie’s misfit marriage and sham teaching job at Sawston are the island he must leave. And in standing up for himself against Pembroke, Stephen is Innes escaping at last. |
My thanks to Zay Pareltheon, Viraji Ogodapola, Mario López-Goicoechea, Sally A Mortemore and Pablo Pereya at The Howling Owl for publishing the entire series and for their patient support of the project.
Additional thanks to Riverhead Books and NetGalley for providing early access to The End of Everything, to my family for reading and for understanding, to Tim and Rosemary for their flexibility, and to Gila for conceiving of the project.
Read more about the shortlisted novels and authors at https://thebookerprizes.com/.
