Outsider's 'weepie' takes the Booker Prize

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Mother-of-two Anne Enright sold fewer books than any of her rivals on the competition shortlist - but that didn't stop The Gathering being most popular with the judges.

The 45-year-old beat the likes of Lloyd Jones, whose novel Mister Pip was the bookies' favourite and On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan.

Former TV producer Enright's 'bleak' tale of three generations of an Irish family harbouring secrets was "powerful, uncomfortable and unflinching", according to judges.

Its author yesterday described the book as 'the intellectual equivalent' of a Hollywood tearjerker, telling the Today programme: "When people pick up a book they may want something that will cheer them up. In that case they should not really pick up my book."

She recently admitted to suffering a nervous breakdown in her 20s and said she had battled suicidal tendencies in her youth.

She was once admitted to hospital where "one doctor asked how many times I had thought of killing myself.

"I told him 'About 243 times before lunch'."

Online bookseller Amazon revealed that The Gathering accounted for just seven per cent of sales for the six shortlisted authors.

Panel chairman Sir Howard Davies said: "We found it a very powerful, uncomfortable and even, at times, an angry book.

"It is an unflinching look at a grieving family in striking language. She is impressive and we expect to hear a lot more from her.

"When we put it on the longlist we did not expect it to be the winner but after reading it three times it emerged as exactly that.

"It has the most brilliant last line I have ever read."

Enright's novel triumphed over Nicola Barker's Darkmans, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid and Animal's People by Indra Sinha.