Booker-prize winner Hilary Mantel takes home Costa Book Award for best novel
LONDON - British writer and two-time Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel has been named novelist of the year at Britain's Costa Book Awards for "Bring Up the Bodies."
Mantel's achievement Wednesday makes her the first author to win both the Costa novel award and Booker Prize in the same year.
The Costa Book Awards carry a 5,000 pound ($8,125) prize and are given in five categories: novel, first novel, biography, poetry and children's book.
Other winners included Scottish poet Kathleen Jamie for "The Overhaul," Francesca Segal for her first-novel "The Innocents," and husband and wife team Mary and Bryan Talbot for the biographical "Dotter of Her Father's Eyes." Sally Gardner won the children's book prize for "Maggot Moon."
The awards, known until 2006 as the Whitbread Book Awards, were established in 1971.
