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Dutch author Gerbrand Bakker has won the 100,000 euro ($143,000) International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world's biggest cash prize for a work of fiction.  Bakker scooped the award for his debut novel The Twin.

The novel is about a man who has to return to his family farm after his twin brother dies in a car accident and is resigned to spending his days "with his head under a cow".  The judging panel say that though rich in detail "it's a sparsely written story, with the narrator's odd small cruelties, laconic humour and surprising tendernesses emerging through a steady, well-paced, unaffected style".

They have described Bakker's writing as "wonderful: restrained and clear" and say he "excels at dialogue".  Bakker will share his prize with translator David Colmer, who receives 25,000 euros.  The Dublin Literary Award is unique in that it receives its nominations from public libraries around the world.  This year 163 libraries from 43 countries took part.  The only literary award which pays more is the Nobel prize, which rewards a body of work rather than a single book.