Novel about grief-stricken Lincoln named winner of Man Booker Prize

George Saunders was last night named the winner of this year’s Man Booker prize for his novel Lincoln in the Bardo – becoming the second US author to take home the £50,000 fiction award.

Saunders’s novel, which details a grief-fuelled visit by the US statesman to his son’s crypt in 1862, had been widely tipped by bookmakers to take home the prize. The Duchess of Cornwall presented his trophy at London’s Guildhall.

Saunders was one of three US authors to make it onto this year’s shortlist, alongside Paul Auster for 4321, set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement, and Emily Fridlund for History Of Wolves, which explores the effects of “neglectful” parenting.

British writer Fiona Mozley, a part-time bookshop worker, had also been shortlisted for the debut novel she began writing on her mobile phone on her way to work.

Seen through the eyes of a child, Elmet is the story of a moody, philosophical bareknuckle fighter who brings up his children “in defiance of social norms”.

The novel, set in a Yorkshire copse, was described by judges as “timeless in its epic mixture of violence and love”. Mozley wrote the first chapter as the landscape of her native Yorkshire whizzed past the window while travelling to London by train.

Scottish author Ali Smith was shortlisted for the fourth time, this year for Autumn, a book “in part about Brexit”.

British-pakistani author Mohsin Hamid completed the shortlist for Exit West, which is about the movement of people across the globe in search of freedom and those “caught up literally and metaphorically in crossfire”.

Lincoln in the Bardo was favourite to win at 11-8 with bookmakers William Hill, followed by Autumn (4-1) and Elmet (9-2).