ROYAL MAIL CELEBRATES 2014 MAN BOOKER PRIZE WINNER WITH POSTMARK

• Royal Mail is celebrating Richard Flanagan’s being named the winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize with a special postmark
• Richard Flanagan received the prestigious award for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North from HRH The Duchess of Cornwall at ceremony this evening
• The postmark will be printed on millions on items of mail delivered nationwide from tomorrow to Saturday
• The postmark will say ‘‘Congratulations to Richard Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.”

Royal Mail is to issue a special postmark to celebrate the winning author of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.    

Richard Flanagan received the prestigious literary award for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North last night HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, at a ceremony at London’s Guildhall. The announcement was broadcast live by the BBC.

Mr Flanagan was one of six authors who were shortlisted for the prize.

Royal Mail’s postmark will appear on millions of items of mail delivered nationwide from tomorrow to Saturday. It will say “Congratulations to Richard Flanagan, winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.”

Andrew Hammond from Royal Mail, said: “We’re delighted to be recognising Richard Flanagan’s fantastic achievement in winning the 2014 Man Booker Prize with one of our special postmarks.

“We’re really pleased to share his success in winning this renowned literary award with a postmark that will be delivered to addresses nationwide.”

The Narrow Road to the Deep North is a love story unfolding over half a century between a doctor and his uncle’s wife. Taking its title from one of the most famous books in Japanese literature, written by the great haiku poet Basho, Mr Flanagan’s novel has as its heart one of the most infamous episodes of Japanese history, the construction of the Thailand-Burma Death Railway in World War II. In the despair of a Japanese POW camp on the Death Railway, surgeon Dorrigo Evans is haunted by his love affair with his uncle’s young wife two years earlier. Struggling to save the men under his command from starvation, from cholera, from beatings, he receives a letter that will change his life forever.

Born in Tasmania in July 1961, Richard Flanagan is one of Australia’s leading novelists. His novels, Death of a River Guide, The Sound of One Hand Clapping, Gould's Book of Fish (winner of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize), The Unknown Terrorist and Wanting have received numerous honours and been published in 26 countries. His father, who died the day Flanagan finished The Narrow Road to the Deep North, was a survivor of the Burma Death Railway. He lives in Tasmania.

Jonathan Taylor, Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation, said: “We are delighted that the foremost prize for literary fiction in English has received this splendid stamp of approval from the Royal Mail.”

Winning the £50,000 prize brings an author international recognition, not to mention a dramatic increase in book sales. Former winners include Hilary Mantel, Salman Rushdie, Iris Murdoch, Peter Carey and JM Coetzee.