Announced just now, Michael Thomas’ book Man Gone Down has been awarded the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award – one of the richest literary prizes available at 100,000 euros.

The judges had this to say about the novel:

We never know his name. But the African-American protagonist of Michael Thomas’ masterful debut, Man Gone Down, will stay with readers for a long time. He lingers because this extraordinary novel comes to us from a writer of enthralling voice and startling insight. Tuned urgently to the way we live now, the winner of the International Dublin IMPAC Prize 2009 is a novel brilliant in its scope and energy, and deeply moving in its human warmth

This marks the first time that an American has won the award