Inspired by Iraqi conflict, Kennedy wins Costa prize

Alison Kennedy's novel, Day, which describes the inner turmoil of a Second World War bomber crew and was written as her response to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, has won the Costa Book of the Year award.

Kennedy's fifth novel had been tipped to win the £25,000 prize for its story of a tail-gunner on a Lancaster bomber. Kennedy, 42, who is also a comedian and an ordained minister, said she set out to draw parallels – and highlight the difference in morality – between the 1940s and Iraq.

"We are currently in a different war with parallells. Lots of disturbing parallels," she said.

The book's central character, Alfred, embarks on a career as an extra in a prisoner-of-war film in 1949 in which he is shipped to Germany, and is forced to reflect on the brutalising experience of war that he had hoped to forget. Kennedy said that aspects of the Second World War, such as the concept of non-combatants, the Nazis declaring countries failed states, the use of torture and "special rendition" chimed with the modern-day war in Iraq. "You start to feel you are not on the right side," she said.

In her winning speech she sent out a strong pro-literacy message in which she encouraged more independent bookshops, libraries and literary learning in schools. She warned: "In Britain, we are in danger of losing our stories. We do not have as many libraries and independent bookshops. We do not want to lose our language because that expresses how we feel," she said.

The writer Joanna Trollope, chair of the judging panel, hailed the novel as "a masterpiece" which was "stylistically arresting", with a shadow of "James Joyce in it".

This year's prize, which was previously called the Whitbread Awards, was dominated by four female writers on a five-strong list of category winners, including the first-time novelist Catherine O'Flynn, who came second for What Was Lost; Ann Kelley, for her children's novel, The Bower Bird; Jean Sprackland, for her third collection of poetry, Tilt; and the historian and writer Simon Sebag Montefiore for his biography, Young Stalin. All five had won in their respective categories earlier this month.

Although Young Stalin had been the bestselling book over the past year from the five category winners, and O'Flynn's novel had had a remarkable rise in sales, it was Kennedy's book that has been the favourite among literary critics.

Rodney Troubridge, from Waterstone's, described it as a favourite among customers and booksellers. "If ever an award was long deserved, this is it," he said.

Kennedy returned from America in spite of her self-confessed "pathological fear" of flying – which she developed after writing the book – for the awards ceremony in London. She was due to return to the US for a reading event with the author Roddy Doyle in New York tonight.

The Costa prize has previously been won by Philip Pullman, William Boyd and Ted Hughes.

Extract from 'Day' by A L Kennedy

"There never is any memory of leaving, nor of pulling the cord to open the parachute. You only tumble into thinking again when your harness yanks you up so hard you feel you've been split in half, or your balls knocked up into you somewhere and no chance of getting them back.

"And this is just you now – you and infinity and the cold, deep silence it's made for you to sway about in. For a while you think something will reach down and touch you, something you can't understand and this is the first time you've truly been frightened all night.

"Which unhinges everything and you don't know if this is a silence or you are deaf and if this is a mist or you are blind, or maybe this is dying – one last joke to get your hopes up before you get the final drop.

"But then you notice you've lost your boots and your Type D linings and your socks and your feet are aching – there they are, your sore naked feet – and a dead person wouldn't be bothered with that and here is some sound, hissing and pressing back in, of the silk above you and the harness and your racing breath and you can understand that seeing will be tricky because you are in a cloud which is why you are wet and freezing, but there is some light, a type of glow which means that day is coming in an overcast dawn."