Big night for Small Island

Novelist Andrea Levy won the £25,000 Whitbread Book of the Year Award last night with a story based on her parents' experience of emigrating from Jamaica to Britain.

Small Island, which had already claimed the Whitbread novel award and the Orange Prize for fiction, is the author's fourth novel. She is the first writer to take both the Whitbread and Orange titles.

Levy, 48, who was born in Highbury, North London, said: 'I didn't think my luck could hold out this long and I'm just so thrilled people like the book.'

Small Island is based on the lives of her parents, who came to Britain in 1948 aboard the transport ship Empire Windrush.

Her characters, Gilbert and Hortense, look forward to life in the 'mother country' but are

shocked to encounter racism. Referring to Enoch Powell's famed 'rivers of blood' speech last night, Levy said: 'I'd like to thank those people in Britain who work hard to make sure the rivers in this country never run with blood, only water.'

The judges included Sir Trevor McDonald, actor Hugh Grant and writer Joanne Harris.

Five contenders for the main award qualified by winning their respective categories on January 6. Second-favourite was My Heart Is My Own, a biography of Mary Queen of Scots by John Guy.

The others were Geraldine McCaughrean's Not The End Of The World, Susan Fletcher's Eve Green and Corpus by Michael Symmons Roberts.