Post Number Twelve*

*Booker Prize 2005 Announced

Irish writer John Banville has one the 50,000-pound Booker Prize for fiction.

Speaking last night at the Guildhall, Banville said winning was "a great surprise, a great pleasure". He said his advice to other authors was "just hang around and it will come. I hung around for many years and it did come."

The Irish Times reports that he is the first Irish winner since Roddy Doyle won with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993.