Author Andrea Levy's story about Jamaican immigrants took Oxford University's Whitbread Book of the Year Award and a $47,000 grand prize.
Levy's "Small Island" also won novel of the year honors from the panel that included former Oxford scholar Hugh Grant, hellomagazine.com reported Wednesday.
The actor said he had forgotten "how dreadful it is to be made to read something under pressure with a deadline." Grant, however, said the experience was just what he needed as he read more during the past three weeks than he had in three months.
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