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Third time lucky for Walter Scott Prize winner Miller

BBC Author Andrew Miller - a grey haired man with brown eyes in a white shirt - gives a big smile as he looks into the camera. He is standing outside a brick building with greenery and people blurred in the backgroundBBC
Andrew Miller won the award after being shortlisted twice in the past

Author Andrew Miller has won the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction after being shortlisted twice for the award in the past.

He was announced as the winner at the Borders Book Festival in Melrose, taking the £25,000 prize.

His work, The Land In Winter, only just fell into the contest's definition of a historical novel as being set at least 60 years ago.

It tells the story of a remote English community during a long, hard winter between 1962 and 1963.

Founded in 2009, the prize is open to novels published in the previous year in the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth.

Among its past winners are Sebastian Barry, Robert Harris, Andrea Levy and Hilary Mantel.

This year's winning author saw off a shortlist of The Heart in Winter by Kevin Barry, The Mare by Angharad Hampshire, The Book of Days by Francesca Kay, Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon and The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden.

He was presented with his prize by Matthew Maxwell Scott, the great-great-great-great grandson of Sir Walter.

The panel of judges, chaired by writer Katie Grant, said: "A true master craftsman, Andrew Miller has painted big themes on a subtle canvas of tiny detail.

"With rare and delicate skill, The Land in Winter opens up the lives of Bill and Rita, Eric and Irene in ways that will sing differently to each reader, and sing differently again on each re-reading.

"With prose as softly dazzling as the snow of the 1962/63 winter in which the novel is set, Andrew Miller takes his richly-deserved place amongst the Walter Scott Prize pantheon of great contemporary writers."

The Bristol-born writer said the characters in his novel "came walking slowly out of a blizzard".

"I leaned quite heavily into the early married lives of my parents, and some of the people they knew, all of whom are long dead now," he said.

"One of the few advantages of getting older is that your own past becomes material for an historical novel."

The Walter Scott Prize is one of the UK's major literary awards.

Along with Ms Grant this year's judging panel included art historian James Holloway, children's author Elizabeth Laird, broadcaster James Naughtie, writer and filmmaker Saira Shah, previous Young Walter Scott Prize winner Rosi Byard-Jones, and award-winning bookseller Rosamund de la Hey.