A writer of great fantasy, implacable precision, genial linguistic invention and tormented moral clearness, in his polyhedric novels John Banville embraces the great themes of our age – science, the nightmare of war, the epochal clash of civilizations – finding them in the man’s heart, where they are interwoven with all the ambiguities, the contradictions, the labyrinths, the charms and the abysses of human passions.

Claudio Magris delivers the prize.