John Banville, who won the Booker Prize in 2005 for his novel The Sea, has won the prestigious Prince of Asturias award for literature
John Banville has won the Prince of Asturias literature award Photo: EPA/EMILIO NARANJO
The Man Booker Prize-winning writer John Banville has been awarded Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias literature award.
Banville beat 23 other contenders to take the €50,000 (around £40,600) prize. Literature is one of eight different fields in which prizes are awarded by the Asturias Foundation each year, rewarding individuals and organisations around the world who make a significant contribution to arts, sports, science and public affairs.
The judges praised Banville's "skill in developing the plot and his mastery of registers and expressive nuances, as well as for his reflections on the secrets of the human heart". The Irish novelist, who is 68, also writes screenplays, drama adaptations and literary criticism.
Banville won the Booker Prize in 2005 for his novel The Sea, about a retired art historian looking back at the events of a formative childhood summer. After winning the Booker, Banville began writing thrillers under his pseudonym, Benjamin Black.
