Levy wins £25,000 book prize

ANDREA Levy yesterday won the 2011 Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction.

The announcement was made at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose. Levy, who won with her fifth book, The Long Song, received a 25,000 prize, donated by the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch to honour Sir Walter Scott, the founding father of the historical novel.

Her novel, about the end of slavery in Jamaica, was one of six shortlisted for the award. The other contenders were David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, C by Tom McCarthy, Ghost Light by Joseph O'Connor, To Kill a Tsar by Andrew Williams and Heartstone by CJ Sansom.

Launched in 2009, it is the biggest British literary award to be judged outside London. The award was judged by Elizabeth Buccleuch, The Scotsman's books editor David Robinson, Elizabeth Laird, Allan Massie and Gavin Wallace.