Barry, Jones and Athill win at Costas

Sebastian Barry, Sadie Jones and Diana Athill have all triumphed as category winners in the Costa Book Awards 2008, which took place last night (5th January).

Barry received the Costa Novel Award for The Secret Scripture (Faber), which was also nominated for the Man Booker Prize. The first novel award went to Sadie Jones for her Orange-shortlisted The Outcast (Vintage). Diana Athill won the biography award for her memoir Somewhere Towards the End (Granta), Adam Foulds' debut work of poetry The Broken Word (Jonathan Cape) picked up the poetry prize while Michelle Magorian won the children's book award for Just Henry (Egmont).

Each winner will receive £5,000, and will go on to compete for the £25,000 2008 Costa Book of the Year award, which will be announced on 27th January. Last year's winner was A L Kennedy's Day (Vintage).

"The Costa Book Awards have an excellent track record of recognising and celebrating some of the very best current British writing, and books that can be enjoyed by everyone," said John Derkach, Costa m.d.. "We're very proud to be announcing such an outstanding collection of books which we know people will enjoy reading."