Anna Burns has become the first Northern Irish writer and the first woman since 2013 to win Britain’s renowned Man Booker Prize for her novel ‘Milkman’.

Milkman is an exploration of Northern Ireland’s three decades of sectarian violence told through the voice of a young woman. The novel chronicles the struggles of a middle sister in a family as she confronts rumour, social pressures and politics amid violent sectarian divisions in her community.

The judges of the annual award praised Anna Burns’ work as utterly distinctive.

Burns was born in the Northern Irish capital Belfast in 1962 and now lives in southern England. She had previously authored two novels – ‘No Bones’ and ‘Little Constructions’.