Paul Beatty has become the first American to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for fiction, winning for The Sellout, a biting satire on race relations in the United States.
Chairwoman of the five judges for the £50,000 ($81,000) prize Amanda Foreman said The Sellout had been a unanimous choice, reached after a meeting lasting about four hours.
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"It plunges into the heart of contemporary American society with absolutely savage wit of the kind I haven't seen since Swift or Twain," she said.
"It manages to eviscerate every social nuance, every sacred cow, while making us laugh and also making us wince ... It is really a novel for our times."
The Sellout tells the story of an African-American, Bonbon, who tries to put his Californian town back on the map, from which it has been officially removed, by re-introducing slavery and segregation in the local high school.
The 289-page novel begins with Bonbon facing a hearing in the Supreme Court, looking back over the events that led up to that point.
The language is uncompromising and may offend some readers. So might some of the content – one old black film actor asks to become Bonbon's slave, for instance – as Beatty lampoons racial stereotypes. And the protagonist's father is unjustly shot by police.
"Paul Beatty has said being offended is not an emotion. That's his answer to the reader," Foreman said.
"This really is a genuine first-class piece of serious literature wrapped up in a shawl of humour."
The Sellout is 54-year-old Beatty's fourth novel. He has also edited an anthology of African-American humour.
It was publisher Oneworld's second Man Booker victory, after winning the 2015 prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings by Jamaican Marlon James.
Apart from the £50,000 prize winning the Man Booker can have a major impact on a writer's sales and readership.
James told Reuters recently that winning the prize can have a "seismic" impact.
In its 48-year history, the prize has gone to authors including Salman Rushdie, Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood.
Founded in 1969 and previously open only to writers from Britain, Ireland and the Commonwealth, the Booker was expanded in 2014 to include all English-language authors.
Since January, the judges have read 155 novels before whittling the pile down to a longlist of 13 then a shortlist of six.
This year's shortlist comprised works by two Britons, a Briton born in Canada, a Canadian and two Americans.
Deborah Levy, whose Hot Milk was in the final six this year, has been on the shortlist before, while Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen was her debut novel.
The Man Booker Prize shortlist was:
Paul Beatty (US) The Sellout
Deborah Levy (UK) Hot Milk
Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) His Bloody Project
Ottessa Moshfegh (US) Eileen
David Szalay (Canada-UK) All that Man Is
Madeleine Thien (Canada) Do Not Say We Have Nothing
Reuters, AP