Migrants' tale tipped for Whitbread

A story of Jamaican immigrants struggling to adapt to life in post-war Britain is favourite to win the Whitbread Book of the Year Award.

Small Island, by Andrea Levy, has been tipped to take the leading literary accolade after it scooped the competition's best novel category last night.

Miss Levy, who drew on the experiences of her parents when writing the novel, has already won the £30,000 women-only Orange Prize for Fiction with the book.

After beating Louis de Bernieres and Man Booker prizewinner Alan Hollinghurst to scoop the best novel award, she is now expected to go on to take the overall top prize.

Small Island is about a young Jamaican ex-serviceman and his wife who arrive in London hoping for a better life, but find cruel racism and doors slammed in their faces.

Miss Levy's fourth novel, it is a comedy about the deflated hopes of West Indian migrants arriving here after the Second World War.

Like Gilbert, one of the book's central characters, Miss Levy's father came to Britain from Jamaica aboard the Empire Windrush in 1948.

And her mother - like Gilbert's wife Hortense - was a teacher who followed her husband to London six months later.

If she wins, Miss Levy will become the first writer to take both the Whitbread and the Orange prizes. Bookmaker William Hill has made her 6/4 favourite to scoop the £30,000 overall Book of the Year title.

The judges sifted through 450 entries to draw up the shortlist and last night announced the five category winners which will compete for the prize.

Speaking about Small Island, the judges said: 'What could have been a didactic or preachy prospect turns out to be hilarious, moving human and eye-popping. It's hard to think of anybody not enjoying it.' With Miss Levy taking best novel, women writers have three out of the top five Whitbread awards. The first novel award went to Susan Fletcher for Eve Green - a coming-of-age story about an orphaned eight-year-old girl who leaves her Birmingham home to live with her grandparents in rural Wales.

The 25-year- old beat the muchfancied Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. Clarke's book also missed out on a place in the Man Booker shortlist.