NZ writer Lloyd Jones has won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book Award 2007 for his novel Mister Pip. "This is fantastic news for Lloyd and for New Zealand literature," said Creative New Zealand Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright.

NZ writer Lloyd Jones has won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize Overall Best Book Award 2007 for his novel Mister Pip. "This is fantastic news for Lloyd and for New Zealand literature," said Creative New Zealand Chief Executive Stephen Wainwright. "Lloyd has been a committed fulltime writer for more than 20 years and it is wonderful to see this latest, very fine novel recognised with such a prestigious award as the Commonwealth Writers' Prize."

This is the first time a New Zealand author has won the award since 1989 when Janet Frame won with her novel The Carpathians. "Having a New Zealand author win the Commonwealth Writers' Prize will raise the profile of New Zealand's literary reputation overseas and so benefit the work of other New Zealand writers," said Wainwright.

Mister Pip, published in New Zealand and Australia last year, will be published in a dozen countries in 2007, including Germany, where Jones will live for 11 months as this year's recipient of the Creative New Zealand Berlin Writers' Residency. He plans to use the residency, which he will take up in August, to work on a new novel as well as two non-fiction projects.

Lloyd Jones has won numerous awards for his work and was the recipient of the 1989 Katherine Mansfield Fellowship. His novel The Book of Fame won the Deutz Medal for Fiction at the 2001 Montana New Zealand Book Awards and the 2003 Tasmania Pacific Prize.

Aloun Assamba, Jamaica Minister for Tourism, Entertainment and Culture awarded a cheque for £10,000 to Lloyd Jones for his novel. The Overall Best First Book Award of £5,000 was awarded to Vandal Love by D Y Bechard of Canada.