WRITER David Mitchell, who grew up and was educated in Great Malvern, narrowly missed out on winning the Man Booker Prize, despite being the hottest favourite in the award's history.
Bookmakers put the 35-year-old's novel - Cloud Atlas - way ahead of its nearest rival, The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst.
But Hollinghurst's novel - about Thatcherism and gay sex - last night scooped the £50,000 prize.
Cloud Atlas is the third book from Mitchell, who now lives in Ireland.
His second, number9dream, was also shortlisted for the 2001 Booker Prize.
His latest novel combines six interlocking narratives to create a masterful whole, beginning with an American notary travelling from Sydney to San Francisco via some remote Pacific Islands in the 1950s.
The characters' stories impact on each other and point to a worrying vision of the world's future, challenging our ability to shape, not only our destiny, but the destiny of those who will come after us.
The other four shortlisted novels were Sarah Hall's The Electric Michaelangelo; The Master by Colm Toibin; I'll Go To Bed by Gerard Woodward and Bitter Fruit by Achmat Dango.
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