The Sellout tells the story of a main character - referred to only as "me" - who wants to assert his African-American roots by bringing back slavery and segregation.

Judges of the award said that the sharpness of Beatty's wit and satire put him up in the same ranks as Mark Twain and Jonathan Swift. However, Beatty himself has said that he does not think of himself as a comic writer or a satirist as he believes that being labelled as such would take away from the more serious themes in his work.

Beatty has also said that his novel's ideas might be difficult to digest for some people, but historian Amanda Foreman, who chaired this year’s judging panel, said that was no bad thing.

“Fiction should not be comfortable,” Foreman said. “The truth is rarely pretty and this is a book that nails the reader to the cross with cheerful abandon … that is why the novel works.

“While you’re being nailed, you’re being tickled. It's a highwire act which he pulls off with tremendous verve and energy and confidence. He never once lets up or pulls his punches. This is somebody writing at the top of their game.”

Foreman called it a “novel for our times”, particularly in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.

The books losing out on the prize were Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh (US), Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien (Canada), All That Man Is by David Szalay (Canada-UK), His Bloody Project by Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) and Hot Milk by Deborah Levy (UK).

Foreman’s fellow judges this year, who have waded through 155 books over 10 months, were the critic and lecturer Jon Day, novelist and academic Abdulrazak Gurnah, poet and academic David Harsent and the actor Olivia Williams.

Beatty, the author of three previous novels and two books of poetry, was presented with his trophy by the Duchess of Cornwall.