Irish author Anne Enright has won this year's coveted Man Booker Prize for her book The Gathering.

A panel of judges chose Enright's novel from a shortlist of six, with the writer picking up the £50,000 prize in London on Tuesday night.

Enright, 45, fought off competition from bookmakers' favourites Ian McEwan and Lloyd Jones to scoop the prestigious literary prize.

Mohsin Hamid, Nicola Barker and Indra Sinha had also been shortlisted for the 2007 award.

The Man Booker Prize recognises the best novel of the last 12 months by an author from a Commonwealth country or the Republic of Ireland.

Sir Howard Davies, chair of the judges, made the announcement, which was broadcast live on the BBC Ten O' Clock News, at the awards dinner at the Guildhall.

He said: "Anne Enright has written a powerful, uncomfortable and, at times, angry book. The Gathering is an unflinching look at a grieving family in tough and striking language.

Anne Enright: "I was ready for anything - possibly anything except that."

"We think she is an impressive novelist, we expect to hear a lot more from her.

"The book is powerful, it pulls you along and it has an absolutely brilliant ending. It has one of the best last sentences of any novel I have ever read."

Enright is the second Irish woman to win the prize, joining compatriots Iris Murdoch, Roddy Doyle and John Banville who won the prize in 1978, 1993 and 2005 respectively.

"I am still churning it through," a stunned Enright told BBC Radio 4. "Tomorrow, I'll wake up and go 'whoopee'.

"I was ready for anything - possibly anything except that.”

The Gathering, which has sold about 3,000 copies since its publication on May 3, is the fourth book by Enright.

It is a family epic set in England and Ireland, in which a brother's suicide prompts Veronica Hegarty to look through her family's history to try and make sense of his death. In the process, she uncovers uncomfortable truths about her large, troubled family.

Enright recently said that her book was "a real weepie - the intellectual equivalent of a Hollywood movie".

British bookmakers Ladbrokes had rated Enright as 12/1 to win the award, against McEwan's odds of 6/4 and Jones' odds of 2/1.

The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai won last year's Man Booker Prize. Desai is the youngest woman to have won the award.

Other previous winners include Alan Hollinghurst, Margaret Atwood, Anita Brookner, Penelope Fitzgerald and Bernice Rubens.

Enright was born in Dublin, where she now lives and works.

The article Anne Enright claims Booker title originally appeared on 999 Today