M. John Harrison | From rebellion to despair

In 2019, British writer M. John Harrison said he supported Extinction Rebellion, a global environmental movement, and people taking action to change the world. But last week, after winning the Booker Prize for his “destabilising and satirical dystopian novel”, The End of Everything, he said he had lost hope for humanity — even as people continued to fight to change the world.

Did something change in seven years? Harrison was born in 1945 and grew up in the shadow of the Second World War. He has said he was impressed by The Waste Land by T.S.

Eliot, especially the way its narrative could pull fragments together into a coherent whole without also pretending it depicted a complete reality. Harrison later moved to London from Warwickshire determined to become a professional writer, despite financial difficulties.