SEAMUS Heaney, Irish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, has won the Whitbread Poetry Award with The Spirit Level, his first new collection for five years. The main prize, the Whitbread Novel Award, was won by Beryl Bainbridge with Every Man For Himself.
The Spirit Level is Heaney's response to the changing political landscape of modern Britain, using elegies, translations and reworkings of old stories. It received a glowing tribute from the judges, who said: "It confirms Heaney's reputation as one of the greatest poets working in the English language.
Bainbridge (62) beat rivals including J.G. Ballard, Fay Weldon and the 1996 winner of the Booker Prize, Graham Swift. Bainbridge was shortlisted with Swift for the Booker Prize last October and has been unsuccessful in four Booker nominations, but she has now won the Whitbread twice. Every Man For Himself is the story of the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 as seen through the eyes of one young passenger.