Which author won the 2014 Booker Prize for 'The Narrow Road to the Deep North'?

Richard Flanagan won the 2014 Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

The Australian novel centres on Dorrigo Evans, a surgeon whose life is shaped by a forbidden love affair and his experiences as a prisoner of war during the construction of the Burma Railway in the Second World War. The story moves across different periods, examining memory, survival, guilt and the lasting effects of trauma.

Flanagan drew partly on his father’s experience as a Japanese prisoner of war. The protagonist’s wartime medical work also reflects aspects of Edward “Weary” Dunlop, the Australian Army doctor remembered for caring for prisoners despite appalling conditions. The novel’s title refers to Matsuo Bashō’s classic travel book Oku no Hosomichi, commonly translated as The Narrow Road to the Deep North.

The award was announced on 14 October 2014. Flanagan’s victory made him the third Australian winner of the Booker Prize, after Thomas Keneally and Peter Carey. The novel was his sixth and had been published in 2013.