Irish author wins Scott book prize again

Novelist Sebastian Barry has won the prestigious Walter Scott literary prize for a second time.

The Irish author first won the £25,000 award in 2012 and has claimed it again this year with his novel Days Without End.

First awarded in 2010, the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction is named after the inventor of the historical fic- tion genre. It is open to books published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth - and previous winners include Hilary Mantel, Andrea Levy and Robert Harris.

Reflecting the subtitle of Scott’s famous work Waverley: Tis Sixty Years Since, the majority of the shortlisted books’ storylines must have taken place at least 60 years ago.

Mr Barry said: “It’s difficult to itemise my simple childish joy at receiving this prize; that the judges did all this work to make a 61-year-old man feel 12 again.”

He added: “It seems to me that the prize itself has not only boosted and bolstered the historical novel, but also has begun to redefine it.”

Days Without End tells the story of two young men during the founding of modern America in the mid-19th century.

It also won the Costa Prize.