The inspiration for my success

Andrea Levy, whose novel has scooped the £30,000 Orange Prize for Fiction, paid generous tribute to her parents, who came to Britain from the West Indies as part of the pioneering Windrush generation of immigrants.

Levy's fourth novel, Small Island, is a comedy about the deflated illusions and subsequent adaptability of Jamaican migrants arriving in Britain after the Second World War. It provided one of the biggest literary upsets of recent years when it took the women-only prize last night.

Events in the novel mirror the experiences of the author's parents: like Gilbert, a central character, Levy's father came to Britain from Jamaica aboard the Empire Windrush ship in 1948. And her mother - like Gilbert's wife Hortense - was a teacher who followed her husband to London six months later.

Collecting her prize at the ceremony on the South Bank, Levy paid tribute to her parents.

She said: "That event, the Windrush, has gone down in British history as the time when Britain became multicultural - which I don't think is necessarily right. But my dad was on the ship. I had that ship on my wall at home, I had a postcard, that is how important it was.

"There's a place that not many people go in their lives and that is beyond their wildest dreams - and that's where I am arriving, I assure you. This feels fantastic."

The other nominees for the 2004 Orange prize were Gillian Slovo, Margaret Atwood, Rose Tremain and Shirley Hazzard. Atwood and Slovo had been considered the favourites.

But Sandi Toksvig, chairman of the judging panel, described Small Island as "an astonishing tour de force". She added: "Juggling four voices, she illuminates a little-known aspect of recent British history with wit and wisdom."

There are other parallels between Levy's novel and her life. Her uncle - her father's twin - was one of the tens of thousands of Jamaicans who fought for the Allied cause in the war. It was this autobiographical detail that provided a central inspiration.

Levy, who spent four-and-a-half years researching Small Island, said its subject matter was "very much part of my personal history, so I very much wanted to go back and have a look at what immigration means, not only for the people that come but for the people who are here".