Irish novelist Anne Enright last night beat the bookies' favourites to become the third Irish writer to win the Man Booker Prize, for her novel The Gathering.
In what the judges said was a tight decision, Enright's "powerful, uncomfortable and even at times angry book" saw off the competition from highly fancied works by Ian McEwan and New Zealander Lloyd Jones.
Enright let the surprise and delight show on her face as she thanked all those who had kept faith with her down through the years - and told her two children watching the announcement on TV that they could go to bed now.
"Well, there is nothing to say except I would like to thank the love of my life Martin Murphy [director of the Pavilion Theatre in Dun Laoghaire] and the two fantastic children he gave me," she said, before also thanking her parents and siblings.
The author, who lives in Bray, Co Wicklow, said she wished to single out for thanks her friends Ann Marie Hourihane and Colm Toibín "who told me my ship would come in".
Chairman of the panel of judges Howard Davies said it had been a very close decision but at the end the judges they came to have enormous respect for her "emotionally- charged novel of family life" and came to "appreciate its careful structure and character development". McEwan's On Chesil Beachand Jones's Mister Piphad been joint favourites to secure the €72,000 (£50,000) prize.
Prior to last night's stunning success, Enright had already been a beneficiary of the "Booker effect".Sales of The Gatheringhad been modest until she was named on the shortlist in August, but have risen dramatically in the meantime.
The 45-year-old former RTÉ television producer studied English and philosophy at TCD, attended the famous University of East Anglia creative writing course and was taught by distinguished novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Angela Carter.
The Gatheringis her fifth book and is in many ways archetypal Booker Prize material. Rage fuels the novel, in which a large Irish family gather for the funeral of a wayward brother. It is also concerned with sex; the mechanics, the fall out, the guilt and the dissatisfaction.
The previous Irish winners of the prize were Roddy Doyle, who won in 1993 for Paddy Clarke Ha HaHa, and John Banville in 2005 for The Sea.