Wire report
Does M John Harrison’s Booker win mean science fiction is finally accepted by a ‘snobby’ literary establishment?
Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeff VanderMeer, Olivia Laing and other writers weigh in on the publishing world’s genre wars As M John Harrison was announced as the Booker prize winner on Monday evening, the 81-year-old looked gobsmacked. Decades into his career, and long overlooked by the mainstream literary establishment, he had just won a prize that has never before rewarded a writer known for science fiction, with a decidedly fantastical book. His fans, many leading authors among them, are thrilled. “For decades it was a standard – and correct – nerd whine to point out that sentence for sentence, book for book, Harrison was one of the greatest writers out there, full stop, but that ‘mainstream’ prizes never reflected that,” says China Miéville, who last week won the Goldsmiths prize with his 1,200-page speculative novel The Rouse . Back in 2002, Miéville wrote that Harrison not having won a Booker
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Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeff VanderMeer, Olivia Laing and other writers weigh in on the publishing world’s genre wars As M John Harrison was announced as the Booker prize winner on Monday evening, the 81-year-old looked gobsmacked. Decades into his career, and long overlooked by the mainstream literary establishment, he had just won a prize that has never before rewarded a writer known for science fiction, with a decidedly fantastical book. His fans, many leading authors among them, are thrilled. “For decades it was a standard – and correct – nerd whine to point out that sentence for sentence, book for book, Harrison was one of the greatest writers out there, full stop, but that ‘mainstream’ prizes never reflected that,” says China Miéville, who last week won the Goldsmiths prize with his 1,200-page speculative novel The Rouse . Back in 2002, Miéville wrote that Harrison not having won a Booker
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According to The Guardian’s source item, Does M John Harrison’s Booker win mean science fiction is finally accepted by a ‘snobby’ literary establishment?, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeff VanderMeer, Olivia Laing and other writers weigh in on the publishing world’s genre wars As M John Harrison was announced as the Booker prize winner on Monday evening, the 81-year-old looked gobsmacked. Decades into his career, and long overlooked by the mainstream literary establishment, he had just won a prize that has never before rewarded a writer known for science fiction, with a decidedly fantastical book. His fans, many leading authors among them, are thrilled. “For decades it was a standard – and correct – nerd whine to point out that sentence for sentence, book for book, Harrison was one of the greatest writers out there, full stop, but that ‘mainstream’ prizes never reflected that,” says China Miéville, who last week won the Goldsmiths prize with his 1,200-page speculative novel The Rouse . Back in 2002, Miéville wrote that Harrison not having won a Booker
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Primary source: Does M John Harrison’s Booker win mean science fiction is finally accepted by a ‘snobby’ literary establishment? via The Guardian. VINI cites and links the source; it does not reproduce the publisher’s full article text without rights clearance.
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- Does M John Harrison’s Booker win mean science fiction is finally accepted by a ‘snobby’ literary establishment?The Guardian - 2026-11-11T16:44:36+00:00
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