The Costa Book Awards, in which Dubliner Sally Rooney's novel Normal People was competing for Book of the Year, announced last night that Bart van Nes had received the award for The Cut Out Girl.

Van Nes' The Cut Out Girl took home the Costa Biography Award earlier this month, while Normal People, widely praised for its witty depiction of love and relationships, secured a win for the Costa Novel Award. These books then faced off against Stuart Turton's The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, JO Morgan's Assurances and Hillary McKay's The Skylarks' War, which had all won in their respective categories. RTÉ 2fm presenter Rick O'Shea was on the panel of judges that made the final decision to who would receive the accolade and accompanying £30,000.

The Cut Out Girl is a true story detailing the life of a Jewish girl in Nazi occupied Holland. Van Nes, a professor of English literature at Oxford University, tracked down and told the story of Lien de John, who is now 85 but had lived with his grandparents during the Nazi occupation before she left them in the '50s. The Cut Out Girl received the award two days after Holocaust Awareness Day.

O'Shea and others took to social media following the announcement to congratulate van Nes.

Congratulations Bart 😊 This was our choice.

You need to read this book...#CostaBookAwards https://t.co/zDkrpWzLfk

— Rick O'Shea (@rickoshea) January 29, 2019

If you‘ve read The Cut Out Girl by Bart Van Es you’ll understand why this moment almost reduced me to tears. If you haven’t, read it and you will. Thank you fellow @CostaBookAwards judges for a wonderful afternoon choosing our winner. Lien - a cut out girl no more. pic.twitter.com/3RUYK3xZhm

— sophieraworth (@sophieraworth) January 30, 2019