Oxford novelist Ian McEwan is celebrating winning Britain's top literary prize - at last.

Mr McEwan pipped bookies' favourite Beryl Bainbridge to the £21,000 Booker Prize for his novel Amsterdam.

After collecting the prize at a ceremony in London last night, he told the audience: "I feel as if I'm dreaming, as I'm sure all winners before me have felt too."

The judges, chaired by former Foreign Secretary and Witney MP Lord Hurd, whittled down 125 novels to a shortlist of six.

Mr McEwan, who is married to Financial Times journalist Annalena McAfee and lives in north Oxford, made the shortlist for the third time with Amsterdam, a story about a fictional Foreign Secretary's sexual behaviour. But he stressed that his politician was a long way from Lord Hurd.

"My Foreign Secretary was rabidly anti-European and deeply xenophobic, which doesn't fit with Douglas Hurd," he said. Miss Bainbridge has been shortlisted four times but never won. William Hill and Ladbrokes rated her novel Master Georgie 6/4 favourite ahead of Mr McEwan.

Miss Bainbridge applauded Mr McEwan's win and said: "It would have been nice, but I am not gutted."

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