John Banville's novel The Sea has been announced as the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize.
Banville was listed as third favourite behind Julian Barnes and Kazuo Ishiguro and was selected as the winner on the deciding vote of judging panel chair John Sutherland. It appears that the panel was split over Banville and Ishiguro. This turns around the previous encounter between the two authors in 1989 when Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day was the winner over Banville's The Book of Evidence.
The shortlisted novels for 2005 were:
The Sea by John Banville
Arthur & George by Julian Barnes
A Long Long Way by Sebastian Barry
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Accidental by Ali Smith
On Beauty by Zadie Smith
