British author Howard Jacobson is the surprise winner of this year's prestigious Man Booker Prize for Literature.
Jacobson beat favourite Tom McCarthy ('C') to pick up the award and £50,000 prize money for 'The Finkler Question', his tale of old school friends and their teacher.
His triumph comes after previous disappointments - he had twice before been longlisted for the prize, but had never previously made it to the shortlist.
Accepting the prize at a ceremony in London, the 68-year-old joked about his long wait to receive an award and the string of unused acceptance speeches he had written.
"I note that my language in these speeches grows less gracious with the years," he said.
"You start to want to blame the judges who are giving you the prize for all the prizes they didn't give you. But they aren't, of course, the same judges.
"Tonight I forgive everyone, they were only doing their job."
He added: "As for the judges of the 2010 Man Booker Prize, they surpass all praise. I thank them."
But the decision by the five judges to award him the prize was a close call, with the final verdict three to two in his favour.
Chair of the judges, English poet Andrew Motion, described the hour-long meeting to pick the winner as "intense".
Motion described Jacobson's book as "very funny, of course, but also very clever, very sad and very subtle".
"It is all that it seems to be and much more than it seems to be. A completely worthy winner of this great prize," he said.
Jacobson described his work as about loss, saying: "I wanted to make the reader laugh and weep at the same moment."
Irish author Emma Donoghue had been shortlisted for her book 'Room'.
