Australian author Richard Flanagan has won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for his wartime novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

AC Grayling, chair of the judges, said it was a “remarkable love story as well as a story about human suffering and comradeship”.

Flanagan’s novel is set during the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War Two.

It was announced as the winner on Tuesday at London’s Guildhall.

Flanagan, 53, was presented with his prize by The Duchess of Cornwall.

Richard Flanagan: ”I never expected to stand here before you in this grand hall in London as a writer, being so honoured”

The book was inspired by the author’s father, a Japanese prisoner of war who survived the Death Railway, but died aged 98 on the day the novel was finished.

The railway between Bangkok in Thailand and Rangoon in Burma was built by Japan in 1943 to support its forces, using forced labour. More than 100,000 people died during its construction.

Grayling said the judges reached a majority decision after three hours of debate.

Source: BBC 

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