Irish novelist Anne Enright has won $175,000 (€162,000) from the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize.

"The sense of unreality has not left me since the news came in," Enright said. "I am floored by the Windham-Campbell Prize's generosity and good will."

Each year, eight Windham-Campbell Prize winners are chosen in recognition of their life's work in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama. The grant is the highest literary prize amount in the world, and is intended to provide financial security to writers so they can focus on their work.

This year's other recipients are Matilda Feyisayo Ibini, Rana Dasgupta, Patricia J. Williams, Roy Williams, Sigrid Nunez, Anthony V. Capildeo and Tongo Eisen-Martin.

Enright has written eight novels and many short stories over her 30 year writing career. She first published a collection of short stories in 1993, followed two years later with her first novel, The Wig My Father Wore.

The Dún Laoghaire-based author won the Booker Prize in 2007 for The Gathering, Irish Novel of the Year in 2015 for The Green Road and was the first Laureate for Irish Fiction (2015 - 2018).

Last year, she was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction for her 2023 book, The Wren, The Wren.

The Windham-Campbell Prizes were established in 2013 as a gift from Donald Windham in memory of his partner, Sandy Campbell, and are presented by Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.