1st Northern Irish author to win Man Booker Prize

Anna Burns has become the first Northern Irish author to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for her novel Milkman, an “incredibly original” story of a young woman’s affair with a married man set in the political troubles of Northern Ireland.

Burns, 56, who was born in Belfast, is the 17th woman to bag the award in its 49-year history and the first woman since 2013.

It is “incredibly original”, said Kwame Anthony Appiah, the chair of the 2018 judging panel, about the book.

The experimental novel, Burns’s third, is set in an unnamed city in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’, an an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century and focusses on a “middle sister” as she navigates her way through rumour, social pressures and politics in a tight-knit community.

“None of us has ever read anything like this before. Anna Burns’ utterly distinctive voice challenges conventional thinking and form in surprising and immersive prose,” said Kwame Anthony Appiah, the chair of the 2018 judging panel.

“It is a story of brutality, sexual encroachment and resistance threaded with mordant humour. Set in a society divided against itself, Milkman explores the insidious forms oppression can take in everyday life,” he said.

The recipient of the Man Booker Prize gets £52,500. The literary award is open to English-language authors from around the world.