So Ted Hughes has won the Whitbread Book Of The Year Award, but not for his controversial volume, Birthday Letters, about his late wife, the poet Sylvia Plath. He has won the prize for a volume which does not have the same populist appeal - Tales From Ovid, a loose translations of the Roman poet's Metamorphoses.

Some detractors considered the work ineligible, as it was a translation; the prize is a strong vote for the translator's art, as the work was judged to be a new piece of writing.

Birthday Letters is at the top of the bestseller lists, and has already sold about twice as many copies as Tales From Ovid in the one week since its publication. Critics are saying that Hughes is likely to win the Whitbread Book Of The Year award for this volume next year.