Novelist Ian McEwan admitted he had felt a pang of guilt at scooping literature's top accolade, writes GILL SMITH. The north Oxford author came from behind to snatch the Booker Prize at the third attempt for his novel Amsterdam.

But like the bookies, Mr McEwan had been convinced that the accolade already belonged to hot favourite Beryl Bainbridge, who had been short-listed four times before.

He said: "I was almost certain it would be Beryl. My wife had said 'Let's think of it as Beryl's evening and have a nice dinner'. I'd resigned myself."

When the judges' verdict was announced his rival, who was said to have been 'upset' by the experience, had been gracious in defeat and offered a hug of congratulation.

Asked if he felt slightly guilty he said: "I did but it soon wore off."

It had been a night of euphoria for the Oxford author, who joined family and colleagues at a party in Soho after the award ceremony. Many of those present had gathered earlier in the evening to see the result on a TV screen. A giant 'football-style' roar had erupted when Mr McEwan's name was read out.

But as he spoke to theOxford Mail the morning after his triumph, reality was beginning to dawn.

Mr McEwan said: "I think it has sunk in now. I woke up and thought 'mmm, this is nice'.

At the ceremony former Foreign Secretary Lord Hurd, chairman of the judges' panel, had said there was no masterpiece among books on the shortlist.

But the author insisted that these comments had taken none of the gloss off his victory.

He said: "I hear that every year. I can't remember a time when people said it was a vintage year packed with masterpieces. The vintage years are always well in the past."

Mr McEwan added: "In ten or 15 years' time you may look back on this year and say Douglas Hurd was right but people might say 'what a year that was'."

Asked how winning the Booker Prize would affect his life, he joked: "Ask me in a couple of weeks' time.

"I'll sell more books. The Booker Prize has enormous sway around the world. In America they take it very seriously. "Whether it's going to be more intrusive in getting down to some work is a possibility, or whether one goes round with a pleasant hum."

Mr McEwan, who was was the first pupil on Malcolm Bradbury's creative writing course at East Anglia University, said that his literary success had crept up on him.

He said: "I don't remember having any big ambitions beyond writing a story that would be accepted by a literary magazine.

"It was only when I saw my name on the cover of an American magazine that I thought 'Whor, this could happen'."

The comic novel which won him the Booker prize centres on a woman whose lovers include a famous composer, the editor of a broadsheet newspaper and a Foreign Secretary.

Despite the numerous requests for interviews and the press attention of the last 24 hours, the author is keeping his feet firmly on the ground. He is looking forward to returning to what he does best - writing.

"I don't want to get to blown away by it," he said. "I want to get back to work."

Next week, he assures, it will be back to business as usual.

STRANGE TWIST OF FATE

It was the comic novel Amsterdam which clinched Ian McEwan Britain's most sought-after literary prize.

But ironically the author had become renowned for the dark and sinister ideas running through his earlier work. McEwan had been dubbed Ian Macabre and among the themes he explored in his early novels were rape, dismemberment and murder.

The author was born in 1940 into a military family and had an unsettled childhood, moving between Britain, Singapore and north Africa.

His literary talents were nurtured at East Anglia University, where he became the first pupil on Malcolm Bradbury's creative writing course.

McEwan was said to have been so impressive that he was credited with convincing the university that the course was actually worth running.

He went on to win the Whitbread Novel of the Year award in 1987 for his book The Child in Time and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1981 for the Comfort of Strangers. He was shortlisted for the Booker again in 1992 for Black Dogs.

The author, who has been married twice, lives in north Oxford and is married to Annalena McAfee, a journalist with the Financial Times.

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