Australian author is surprise Booker winner
Australian author DBC Pierre has won the Booker Prize for Vernon God Little, his novel about a high school massacre in Texas.
The Author, whose real name is Peter Finlay, was the most controversial of all the nominees for literatures most famous prize. Earlier in the week the novelist admitted to betraying and fleecing his friends and even swindling an elderly American artist out of his home.
However DBC Pierre swears that he has put his former ways behind him and is paying back his dues. Indeed this is how he plans to spend his £50,000 prize money joking as he collected it that: ‘It is going to creditors – if they’re not here now, I’m sure they will be in a minute’.
DBC stands for ‘dirty but clean’ a teenage nickname and a reference to his changed ways. The author is 42 and the third Australian to win the prize – now in its 35th year.
The chairman of the judges, Professor John Carey, described Vernon God Little as a ‘coruscating black comedy reflecting our alarm but also our fascination with America’. His team chose Pierre by a margin of four to one.
Other novelists in the shortlist for the award included Margaret Atwood, Zoe Heller, Damon Galgut and Clare Morrall.
