Booker Prize Awarded to M. John Harrison's Novel 'The End of Everything'

The prestigious Booker Prize, awarded to fiction written in English and published in the UK and Ireland, was awarded this year to M. John Harrison's novel The End of Everything. At the ceremony held at Old Billingsgate in London, the award was presented to Harrison along with a cash prize of 50,000 pounds.

The jury, chaired by historian and publisher Mary Beard, reached a unanimous decision after evaluating 163 submissions. Describing the work as today's politics through the lens of the future, Mary Beard noted that dark humor, political satire, and optimism are brought together in the novel. At the ceremony, where last year's winner David Szalay presented the award, Harrison went down in history as the oldest winner in the prize's history.

M. John Harrison also became the first author to win this prize with a work based on a science fiction background. Meanwhile, independent publisher Serpent's Tail achieved the success of winning the Booker Prize with a book published by them for the first time.