The U.K.'s Orange Prize for fiction, worth £30,000, was awarded to the only American author on the shortlist, Ann Patchett, for her novel Bel Canto.
Patchett was up against strong competition from two other established British novelists for the prize. Helen Dunmore was shortlisted for The Siege, and Maggie Gee was nominated for The White Family, an exploration of racial conflicts within a family, which has yet to find a U.S. publisher. Two debut novelists were also shortlisted: Anna Burns for No Bones and Chloe Hooper for A Child's Book of True Crime.
The announcement of Patchett's win surprised the audience at the Royal Opera House, although the author has already won the PEN/Faulkner Award in the U.S.
The choice comes amid continuing controversy that the new sponsor of the Booker Prize, the Man Group, will open up the competition to American authors at some point in the future.
