Impac Dublim literary prize goes to Michael Thomas

How cool that the world's richest literary award (100000 Euros)Impac Dublin Prize this year goes to Michael Thomas, a debut novelist, who has "never really had a proper job", for his novel Man Gone Down!

Among the authors Michael beat were Philip Roth, Doris Lessing and Joyce Carol Oates. "Tuned urgently to the way we live now, [Man Gone Down] is a novel brilliant in its scope and energy, and deeply moving in its human warmth."