LONDON (AP) β Australia’s Richard Flanagan has won the prestigious Booker Prize for fiction with “The Narrow Road to the Deep North,” a visceral story of war and its aftermath.
Flanagan drew on his father’s experiences as a World War II prisoner of the Japanese for the book, which centers on the Burma Death Railway, built with forced labor at the cost of tens of thousands of lives.
The prize brings a 50,000 pound ($80,000) purse and a sales boost.
Flanagan’s victory Tuesday disappointed those who hoped to see an American win in the first year U.S. authors were eligible. The Booker was previously open to authors from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth of dozens of former British colonies, including Australia.
U.S. writers Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler were among the six finalists.
