Andrea Levy wins Walter Scott Prize with The Long Song

Small World author Andrea Levy has won the £25,000 Walter Scott Prize with her Booker-shortlisted The Long Song, about the legacy of slavery.

'Andrea Levy brings to this story such personal understanding and imaginative depth that her characters leap from the page, with all the resilience, humour and complexity of real people,' said the judges. 'There are no clichés or stereotypes here. The Long Song is quite simply a celebration of the triumphant human spirit in times of great adversity.'

'I’m very honoured to receive the Walter Scott Prize,' said Andrea. 'This is a generous literary prize, which focuses attention on an important aspect of the role of fiction.  Fiction can—and must—step in where historians cannot go because of the rigour of their discipline. Fiction can breathe life into our lost or forgotten histories.'

The Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction was founded in 2010. The 2010 winner was Hilary Mantel for Wolf Hall. Andrea Levy was awarded this year's Prize in June at Borders Book Festival.

The other shortlisted titles for this year's award were: David Mitchell, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet; Tom McCarthy, C; Joseph O'Connor, Ghost Light, Andrew Williams, To Kill a Tsar and Heartstone, CJ Sansom,

Website: www.andrealevy.co.uk