IRISH author Christine Dwyer Hickey has won £25,000 after claiming the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2020.

Judges considered her novel The Narrow Land to be a “masterpiece” for its portrayal of Edward and Jo Hopper’s marriage.

In a video acceptance speech, Ms Hickey said: “I really, really appreciate this recognition.”

The winner was originally going to be announced at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, but coronavirus restrictions forced a change of plan.

Ms Hickey’s book about the marriage of two American artists led to her triumphing over fellow authors Joseph O’Connor, Isabella Hammad, James Meek, Tim Pears and Marguerite Poland.

Ms Hickey said: “Writing a novel takes a big chunk of one’s life - The Narrow Land was six years in the making - which is why I really, really appreciate this recognition.

“I would like to send my thoughts to a grave in a hillside cemetery in Nyack, overlooking the Hudson river, a few miles from New York City, where the artists Edward and Jo Hopper lie, and where I hope they have at last found peace.

“I also hope they will forgive me the intrusion.”

The judging panel consisted of Elizabeth Buccleuch, James Holloway, Elizabeth Laird, Jim Naughtie, Kirsty Wark and chairwoman Katie Grant.

Their joint statement reads: “It’s a risky business, portraying the marriage of two artists, particularly when both the marriage and the art have already been picked over by biographers and art historians.

“Christine Dwyer Hickey has embraced the risk and created a masterpiece.

“In The Narrow Land, she reaches into the guts of the marriage of Jo and Edward Hopper and into the heart of the creative impulse itself. And more, much more.

“Quietly, inexorably, and with pinpoint perception, our winner has brought to dramatic life not just the Hoppers’ intimate eruptions but the tensions and complexities in those around them, from two young boys scarred by war to the transient summer crowd at Cape Cod, and though this forensic lens we glimpse the upheavals that were to shake all Americans in the post-war world.

“With the pull of a shifting sea, The Narrow Land drew the judges back again and again, each reading richer than the one before.”

The Walter Scott Prize, founded in 2009, rewards the best fiction set 60 years ago or more. It is open to authors from the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth.

This year's prize-winner was announced on BBC Radio 4 at 7.45pm on June 12.