Irish author Anne Enright has said she is "floored" after being awarded the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize, which carries a prize fund of $175,000 (€162,000) for each recipient.
The prize is awarded to eight writers from around the world each year, however, the twist is that none of them know that they have been nominated.
Established in 2013 in America as a gift from American novelist Donald Windham in memory of his partner of 40 years, Sandy Campbell, it is one of the world's most prestigious literary awards and is intended to offer winning authors financial security to allow them to focus on their writing.
Ms Enright’s work was described by the judging panel as "formidable" and "nothing short of momentous".
"The sense of unreality has not left me since the news came in - what an astonishing thing to drop out of a clear blue sky. I am floored by the Windham-Campbell Prize’s generosity and goodwill," Ms Enright said.
The Dubliner added that she believes her authentic self is in fiction and that it "asks questions rather than delivering answers" in the manner non-fiction works do.
"I think every time you’re writing a book you’re playing with elements of your own psyche.
"It must be you in some form - some shadow self or some projected self," she said in a video shared on the prize's website.
The judge’s citation said: "In her wide-ranging and wryly unsentimental fiction, Anne Enright explores the limitations and joys of our human need for belonging.
"With her iconoclastic daring, Enright is skillfully able to wield shifts in narrative styles, viewpoints, and time to echo the true-to-life nature of consciousness and memory.
"In her Man Booker Prize-winning novel, The Gathering, Enright displays the majestic heights of her prose in depictions of intergenerational wounds and reparations."
Ms Enright said that it took time for her to appreciate her place among the greats of Irish literature.
"For the first 20 years of my writing life if I was ever asked about what it was like to be an Irish writer, I would get really kind of impatient because I was writing my way out of Ireland, not back into Ireland.
"And slowly that gap has filled up for me and I am so proud of the tradition of which I’m a part, and of which I’m kind of an antagonist part, because I’m always sort of against the Irish tradition as well as in the Irish tradition," she said.
"It’s like an arranged marriage I was obliged. I was kind of obliged into writing and that is, more or less happily, what I have ended up doing."
Minister for Arts Patrick O'Donovan congratulated Ms Enright on winning the prestigious award.
"The achievements of Irish writers are recognised around the world and her novels are a worthy addition to that proud tradition.
"Anne has been to the forefront of contemporary Irish writing for decades and is one of our most beloved writers with legions of readers at home and around the world," Minister O’Donovan said.
Ms Enright is the eight Irish winner of this competition, which is worth three times more than the Booker prize fund.
Previous Irish winners include Sonya Kelly for drama last year, Marina Carr for Drama in 2017 and Danielle McLaughlin also for fiction in 2019.
