Confounding the bookies' expectations, this year's Whitbread judging panel have passed over the odds-on favourite Ali Smith in favour of Hilary Spurling, who has taken the crown from last year's winner Andrea Levy with Matisse the Master, the second volume of her formidable and profoundly scholarly life of the painter. This is only the fourth time in the prize's 35-year history that the title of book of the year has gone to a biography. The most recent occasion was in 2002, when Claire Tomalin famously saw off competition from her husband, Michael Frayn (in the running for Spies, which had won in the best novel category), with her stunning life of Pepys, Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self.
As well as Ali Smith, whose novel The Accidental was heavily tipped to take the title, Spurling was up against strong rivals in the forms of veteran poet Christopher Logue, who was in the running for the penultimate instalment of his celebrated account of Homer's Iliad, children's novelist Kate Thompson, whose book The New Policeman won the 2005 Guardian children's fiction prize, and Tash Aw for his first novel, The Harmony Silk Factory. For full coverage and reviews of the category-winning novels, visit our Whitbread 2005 special report.
So ... what do you think? Was Matisse the Master a worthy winner, or should the honour have gone to someone else?
