Local author wins Booker prize (From Wilts and Gloucestershire Standard)

Local author wins Booker prize

GLOUCESTERSHIRE born author Alan Hollinghurst is celebrating this week after scooping the book world's most prestigious award.

The 50-year-old, who grew up in Cirencester but now lives in London, won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize with his fourth novel, 'The Line of Beauty'.

A story of sex and politics set during four of years of change and tragedy in the 1980s, the novel is the first work of gay fiction to win the prize. The son of a Cirencester bank manager, Mr Hollinghurst was born in Stroud.

He studied and taught in Oxford before becoming the deputy editor of the Times Literary Supplement for some years.

Collecting his award at a ceremony in the Royal Horticultural Halls in Westminster last week, he said: "I hardly know where I am.

"My whole psychological technique for dealing with this evening was to convince myself I wasn't going to win it."

Mr Hollinghurst, a poet as well as an author, was shortlisted for the prize in 1994 with his second novel, 'The Folding Star'.

His recent success, however, should see sales of 'The Line of Beauty' hit the roof, as the Man Booker Prize almost guarantees commercial success.

The novel tells the story of a young man who is taken under the wing of an up and coming Tory MP during the Thatcher years.

The hero is Nick Guest, an Oxford graduate who moves into the Notting Hill family home of his university friend, Toby Fedden.

Toby's father is an ambitious and wealthy MP and Nick soon becomes caught up in the Feddens' world, with its grand parties and expensive holidays in France.

One memorable scene actually features a cameo from Mrs Thatcher herself - Nick meets the "Iron Lady" at a party while high on cocaine.