Costa prize winners announced, Jack Fairweather wins book of the year

Former war reporter Jack Fairweather has won the Costa book of the year prize for The Volunteer, a biography of a Polish war hero.

The story follows Witold Pilecki, a member of the Warsaw resistance who voluntarily entered Auschwitz to reveal its horrors to the rest of the world and encourage a rebellion. Costa's chair of judges, Sian Williams, called it "a book that needs to be read."

The annual Costa Book Awards recognise English-language books by writers based in Britain and Ireland. However, this year's shortlist only included one Irish book - Shadowplay by Joseph O'Connor. The overall award rewards the year's "most enjoyable" book, selected from the winners of the five subsections - novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children's. The Volunteer earned the top biography prize.

Revisit the full shortlist below (winners in bold):

2019 Costa First Novel Award shortlist

Diary of a Somebody by Brian Bilston (Picador)
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams (Trapeze)
The Confessions of Frannie Langton by Sara Collins (Viking)
The Other Half of Augusta Hope by Joanna Glen (The Borough Press)

2019 Costa Novel Award shortlist

Middle England by Jonathan Coe (Viking)
Confession with Blue Horses by Sophie Hardach (Head of Zeus)
Starling Days by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan (Sceptre)
Shadowplay by Joseph O’Connor (Harvill Secker)

2019 Costa Biography Award shortlist

On Chapel Sands: My mother and other missing persons by Laura Cumming (Chatto & Windus)
The Volunteer: The True Story of the Resistance Hero who Infiltrated Auschwitz by Jack Fairweather (WH Allen) 
In Extremis: The Life of War Correspondent Marie Colvin by Lindsey Hilsum (Chatto & Windus)
The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels by Adam Nicolson (William Collins)

2019 Costa Poetry Award shortlist

Surge by Jay Bernard (Chatto & Windus)
Flèche by Mary Jean Chan (Faber & Faber)
The Mizzy by Paul Farley (Picador)
Reckless Paper Birds by John McCullough (Penned in the Margins)

2019 Costa Children’s Award shortlist

Asha & the Spirit Bird by Jasbinder Bilan (Chicken House) 
Crossfire by Malorie Blackman (Penguin Books)
In the Shadow of Heroes by Nicholas Bowling (Chicken House)
Furious Thing by Jenny Downham (David Fickling Books)