10 Jun 2010

Orange Prize awarded to US author

10:44 pm on 10 June 2010

US author Barbara Kingsolver has won this year's Orange Prize for fiction.

She beat Booker Prize winner Hilary Mantel and four others, to take the prize, worth £ 30,000, with her sixth novel The Lacuna.

The award, which recognises the work of fiction written by women from around the world, is now in its 15th year.

Author and TV producer Daisy Goodwin praised the winning book's "breathtaking scale".

Kingsolver, 55, was presented with her award by the Duchess of Cornwall, at the Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday.

She was previously nominated for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 1999 for her novel The Poisonwood Bible.