Harrison, 81, becomes oldest Booker Prize winner with dystopian novel
The judges picked Harrison's 198-page novel, his 13th, from 163 submissions, and it is his first Booker nomination.
British writer M. John Harrison became the oldest winner of the Booker Prize on Monday, taking the award at age 81 for his dystopian novel "The End of Everything," Turkey's state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported.
Harrison received the prize, worth £50,000 ($67,232), at a ceremony at Old Billingsgate in London, where last year's winner, David Szalay, handed it to him.
The novel, Harrison's 13th, centres on a beachcomber and his aged aunt, who try to get by on England's Kent coast after an unexplained disaster and the appearance of shape-shifting beings called the iGhetti.
At 198 pages, it was the shortest of the six shortlisted books.
Historian and broadcaster Mary Beard, who chaired the judging panel, said the judges chose the book unanimously from 163 entries.
Beard said the novel views current politics through a future lens and praised its mix of dark humour, political satire and optimism.
Harrison, whose writing career covers six decades, is the first Booker winner whose work is mainly science fiction, the Booker Prize Foundation said.
He is older than Margaret Atwood, who was 79 when she shared the award in 2019.
The shortlist also featured former Booker winners Marlon James and Douglas Stuart, along with Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry.
The win is the first Booker Prize victory for the independent publisher Serpent's Tail.
The prize, founded in 1969, honours the best fiction written in English and published in the UK or Ireland, and writers of any nationality may enter.