London: Australian author Richard Flanagan has been named as the winner of this year's Man Booker Prize Tuesday night at London's Guildhall for his novel of love and war 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'.
Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction is Richard Flanagan with The Narrow Road to the Deep North #ManBooker2014 pic.twitter.com/nYlJwHfD8s
— Man Booker Prize (@ManBookerPrize) October 14, 2014
Flanagan's novel, which is set during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War Two, tells the harrowing stories of prisoners and captors on the infamous Burma railway.
The novelist, who became the third Australian to win the Man Booker for fiction was presented with his award at Guildhall, which comes with a £50,000 ($79,530) cheque, by Prince Charles’s wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.
His protagonist is Dorrigo Evans, a doctor and a soldier in the Australian army who is taken prisoner on Java and is haunted by his love affair.
"To be a writer is a journey into humility" #ManBooker2014 winner Richard Flanagan pic.twitter.com/OnR7QFltNG
— Man Booker Prize (@ManBookerPrize) October 14, 2014
For the first time in the British prestigious literary award's 46-year history, this was the first year that the Man Booker Prize had been opened to all authors of any nationality, writing in English and having their work published in Britain.
AC Grayling, who chaired the judges, described the book as “an absolutely superb novel, a really outstanding work of literature.”
However, British-Indian writer Neel Mukherjee, who was being stated as favourite to win this year's Man Booker Prize, could not make it possible.
The other contestants on the shortlist were US authors Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler, and British authors Howard Jacobson and Ali Smith.
The book is Flanagan sixth novel and is dedicated “to prisoner san byaku san ju go”- a reference to his father's Japanese prison number, 335.
Flanagan's father was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway. He died at age 98, the day he completed his book.
Flanagan was born in Tasmania in July, 1961. His previous novels include- Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould's Book of Fish, The Unknown Terrorist and Wanting.
