Irish writer favourite for Costa award

Colm Toibin has been hailed as the frontrunner to scoop the Costa Book of the Year award after clinching the prize’s Novel Award category for his work titled 'Brooklyn'.

The author’s sixth novel centres around a young Irish girl who travels to the United States in the 1950s to find work, before tragic news summons her home.

Bookmaker William Hill made the book its favourite to win the Costa award, which will be selected from various category winners later this month.

Toibin’s books have been translated into 18 languages and he is publishing a collection of short stories, 'The Empty Family', this year.

The Irish novelist was shortlisted alongside works by other literary heavyweights such as Penelope Lively and Hilary Mantel – who previously won the £50,000 (€55,711) Man Booker Prize for Fiction for Wolf Hall.

In other Costa Book Awards categories, a former scooter salesman took the Costa First Novel Award for his book about a Bangladeshi woman who flees an abusive arranged marriage.

Raphael Selbourne, who has taught maths and English to the long-term unemployed in Wolverhampton, where he still lives, won the award for his novel, entitled 'Beauty'.

Christopher Reid, who has been nominated for two awards previously, made it third time lucky, picking up the Poetry Award for 'A Scattering', a tribute to his wife Lucinda Gane, following her death in 2005.

Hong Kong-born Reid, who has held the post of professor in creative writing at the University of Hull, included four poetic sequences in his work; the first written during his wife’s final illness and the remaining three at intervals following her death.

Debut biographer Graham Farmelo took the Biography Award for his work on quantum mechanics pioneer Paul Dirac in 'The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius'.

Farmelo explored the life of the Nobel laureate in physics, described as “pathologically reticent, strangely literal-minded and almost completely unable to communicate or empathise”.

The book took the senior research fellow at London’s Science Museum and former Good Food Guide restaurant inspector six years to put together.

Patrick Ness won the Children’s Book Award for 'The Ask and the Answer (Chaos Walking: Book Two)', described by judges as a “dazzlingly-imagined, morally complex, compulsively-plotted tale”.

Among other shortlisted works, the book beat Guantanamo Boy by Anna Perera, a novel about the notorious detainment camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Selected from 592 entries, the five winners receive £5,000 (€5,571) each and the overall winner, who will receive a further £30,000 (€33,422.54), will be announced at a ceremony in London on January 26.

Janine Cook, fiction buyer at retailer Waterstone’s said: “The Costa never fails to pick an eclectic bunch of winners, and this year is no exception.

“The frontrunner must be Colm Toibin’s 'Brooklyn' which we sold very well over Christmas.

“However, smart punters might want to place a bet on Beauty by Raphael Selbourne.”

Judges on this year’s panels included actor and writer Neil Pearson and broadcaster and journalist Fiona Phillips.

John Derkach, Costa managing director said: “We’re very proud to be announcing such an outstanding collection of books which we know people will enjoy reading.”

Sebastian Barry won the 2008 Book of the Year for The Secret Scripture.

The awards were established in 1971 by Whitbread plc and since the introduction of the Book of the Year Award in 1985 it has been won nine times by a novel, four times by a first novel, five times by a biography, five times by a collection of poetry and once by a children’s book.