The End of Everything Riverhead Books

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE

"A "thoroughly original, masterly" (New York Times Book Review) apocalyptic adventure, and a formidable exploration of what it means to be human in a shifting world, from "one of the very great writers alive today." (China Miéville)

"A book not just about everything but about now." --Booker Prize Judge citation

"I don't think I'll read a better book this year, perhaps decade."--Observer (UK)

"A formidable book."--Financial Times

Phillip Tennent makes his living at the tideline, collecting artifacts that wash up from the Channel. It's been years since the crisis changed everything, but its exact nature remains obscure. Government barely functions, the seas are full of new creatures, an entire continent has been mislaid. It feels like the end.

Now Phillip has fished out of the water an object he can't keep. A creature that keeps changing. An artifact he must take inland, before it destroys everything he thinks he knows. The End of Everything is a slyly satirical and unsettling post-apocalyptic adventure into the limits of human understanding, from the peerless master of contemporary fiction.