Costa book prize

Surprise winner announced for book of the year...

10:54 27 January 2011

Jo Shapcott has won the prestigious Costa Book of the Year award for her poetry collection, Of Mutability.

It is the second year in a row that a book of poetry has won the £30,000 prize.

Of Mutabilty is a collection of poems partly inspired by the author's battle against breast cancer.

Shapcott told the BBC that she was shocked by her win and said it was the last thing she was expecting.

"The other books on the shortlist are so extraordinary. Poetry won last year so I thought, naturally, not poetry again."

She continued, saying she was accepting the award for poetry as a whole and that she wanted to encourage more people to pay attention to the genre.

"There are lots of readers out there who might love poetry if they tried it but don't, because they don't think it is for them."

The judges said that the book was a "celebration of life" and added that they were "captivated" her poetry.

Jo has also won the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and Forward Poetry Prize, since she published her first work in 1988.

The Costa Book of the Year was chosen from five previously announced winners of individual categories.