Novel Pure wins Costa prize amid bitter dissent

LONDON (Reuters) -

Andrew Miller

's novel "Pure" won a 2011

Costa Book of a Year Award

on Tuesday, violence 4 other difficulty winners after what a chair of judges described as "fierce debate".

The eight-member panel, led by

London Evening Standard

editor

Geordie Greig

, was neatly pided between awarding "Pure" a altogether endowment and "Now All Roads Lead to France", an comment of a final years of producer

Edward Thomas

's life.

The latter, a communication entrance of producer

Matthew Hollis

, had been a bookmakers' favorite to travel divided with a winner's coupon for 30,000 pounds ($47,000).

The other shortlisted works were

debut novel

"Tiny Sunbirds Far Away" by Christie Watson, "The Bees" by British

poet laureate

Carol Ann Duffy

and children's book "Blood Red Road" by Moira Young.

"It unequivocally was a extreme discuss and there was utterly sour gainsay and argument," Greig told reporters. "The discuss was prolonged."

He described "Pure," set in 18th century Paris and revolving around a city's oldest cemetery, as "a abounding and shining chronological novel.

"It's a probity story that engrosses with a clear bid of pre-revolutionary France."

Miller had beaten Booker Prize leader Julian Barnes's "The Sense of an Ending" to explain a best novel section, itself value 5,000 pounds.

Greig pronounced a Costa awards were quite formidable to adjudicate, since they pitted opposite literary genres opposite any other, distinct many other vital book awards.

"It feels like you're comparing bananas and duck curry," he quipped, adding after that it was same to "a hockey actor being judged opposite a free-style swimmer."

Eventually a preference was put to a opinion and a row corroborated "Pure," nonetheless Greig did not fact a series of judges behind any book.

"It doesn't make it (the prize) invalid, though it does make it difficult," he said, before fortifying a endowment by saying: "Anything that promotes books is a good thing."

Since a introduction of a Book of a Year endowment in 1985, it has been won 10 times by a novel, 4 times by a entrance novel, 5 times by a biography, 7 times by a collection of communication and once by a children's book.

The 2010 Costa Book of a Year leader was "Of Mutability" by producer Jo Shapcott.

(Reporting by Mike Collett-White; modifying by Patricia Reaney)

(news.yahoo.com)