Booker prize judges have "flouted the rules" awarding Margaret Atwood and Bernardine Evaristo joint winners of the literature prize.
Atwood won for The Testaments, the Canadian author's sequel to the The Handmaid's Tale set in the fictional republic of Gilead.
Evaristo was recognised for her novel Girl, Woman, Other following the lives and struggles of 12 characters - mostly women, black and British - telling the stories of their families, friends and lovers.
Writing on the story behind her book for The Guardian, Evaristo said: “What, then, does it mean to not see yourself reflected in your nation’s stories? This has been the ongoing debate of my professional career as a writer stretching back nearly forty years, and we black British women know, that if we don’t write ourselves into literature, no one else will”.
The honour makes Evaristo the first black woman to win the prize. In a press conference following the award announcement Evaristo said she hopes she can be a role model for writers of colour.
At 79, Atwood is the oldest ever Booker Prize winner and the fourth author to have won the prize twice, having won in 2000 with The Blind Assassin. She has been shortlisted for four further books: The Handmaid’s Tale (1986), Cat’s Eye (1989), Alias Grace (1996) and Oryx and Crake (2003).
The winners were chosen by a panel of five judges: chair Peter Florence, former fiction publisher and editor Liz Calder; novelist Xiaolu Guo; writer, broadcaster Afua Hirsch and concert pianist Joanna MacGregor.
Booker Prize Foundation Literary Director Gaby Wood said the the judges chose from 151 submitted books and made the decision after an agonising five hours of deliberations.
“On being told that it was definitively against the rules, the judges held a further discussion and chose to flout them. They left the judging room happy and proud.”
The celebration of these two fiercely feminist books reflects an increasingly diverse panel featuring three women and two judges of colour, including Hirsh, the author of "Brit(ish): On Race, Identity and Belonging."
The Booker Prize has been jointly awarded twice before, to Nadine Gordimer and Stanley Middleton in 1974 and to Michael Ondaatje and Barry Unsworth in 1992.
In 1993, the rules were changed so that only one author could win the prize.
You can catch up The Handmaid's Tale on SBS On Demand. Check out the award-winning exclusive SBS Eyes on Gilead podcast devoted to Margaret Atwood's 'The Testaments'.
