John Banville, with his Booker-winning novel, last night
Photograph: Getty
This year's £50,000 award has gone to John Banville, who beat favourites Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro to the gong with The Sea, a melancholy, literary meditation on grief and memory, in a contest which chairman of the judges Professor John Sutherland described as "painful" in its closeness (read the story in full here). There's no doubt that this is a shock result: Boyd Tonkin, literary editor of The Independent, described it as "possibly the most perverse decision in the history of the award". Meanwhile, Tibor Fischer, writing in the Guardian today, called The Sea "a book that won't do the Booker's reputation much good", and went on to say that "I reviewed The Sea three months ago and I'm afraid I can't remember anything about it, apart from the fact that it was set by the sea ... "
But never mind them - what do you think? Did the best author win?
