LONDON: UK author M. John Harrison won the Booker Prize on Monday for his enigmatic novel The End of Everything, which echoes concerns about artificial intelligence in a darkly satirical depiction of post-apocalyptic Britain.
Harrison, 81, became the oldest winner of the award, which comes with a $67,000 prize and a boost in sales and profile for the winner. A veteran of the British science fiction literary scene, it was Harrison’s first time being shortlisted for the coveted prize, which critics have said was long overdue.
He beat shortlisted authors Marlon James, Douglas Stuart, Elizabeth Strout, Luke Kennard and Rebecca Perry, whose entries ranged from a queer epic unfolding in 1980s Kingston to a campus satire set in modern-day London.
The E nd of Everything came out ‘ahead in terms of both its extraordinary expert writing, but also huge ambition,’ chair of the judges Mary Beard told a press conference. Harrison’s 13th novel follows the beachcomber Phillip Tennent and his dementia-stricken, free-spirited aunt Marnie, set in the near-future on the windswept English coast invaded by mysterious objects known as the iGhetti.
An unnamed catastrophe plunges the characters into a murky post-apocalyptic world where the European continent seems to have disappeared and the arrival of the iGhetti, which can imitate humans, evokes interactions with artificial intelligence.
‘One main point of the book is that if, or when, such an apocalypse comes it will be incomprehensible,’ Beard said, adding the book spoke to the present ‘moment’. ‘This is the politics of now seen through the lens of the future, Beard said in a statement.
In dream-like episodes this tight, 198page novel alludes to Brexit, the Covid-19 pandemic and the invasion of technology into daily life. As is often the case withHarrison’s writing, which has been described as genre-bending and singular, the plot counts less than the atmosphere, and the author’s elliptical and poetic style heightens the feeling of gradual collapse.
‘Current affairs provided the themes and the satire,’ Harrison said of his book. ‘What happens when all of our expectations and explanations of the world become an ongoing disaster, but we still have to make a life?’ The author previously said he was inspired by the 2008 financial crisis, and wanted to write a novel about the ‘failure of explanation in society’. Born in Rugby, England, in 1945, Harrison is the author of numerous science fiction books, including the Viriconium saga (1971-1984) and Light (2002), the first volume of a trilogy known as The Kefahuchi Tract, renowned as major works of the genre.-AFP