"The English Patient" Judged As Best Man Booker Prize-Winning Novel

"The English Patient" by Michael Ondaatje (Bloomsbury) has been crowned the best work of fiction from the last five decades of the Man Booker Prize.

The Golden Man Booker winner was revealed at the closing event of the Man Booker 50 Festival in Royal Festival Hall at Southbank Centre in London on Sunday, Xinhua news agency reported.

The winner of this special one-off award for the Man Booker Prize's 50th anniversary celebrations was chosen by the public.

All 51 previous winners were considered by a panel of five specially appointed judges, each of whom was asked to read the winning novels from one decade of the prize's history, before the books faced a month-long public vote on the Man Booker website.

"The English Patient is a compelling work of fiction - both poetic and philosophical - and is a worthy winner of the Golden Man Booker," said Baroness Helena Kennedy, Chair of the Booker Prize Foundation.