美国玛德琳·米勒获2012橘子小说奖

Debut¹ US novelist Madeline Miller² has won the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction with The Song of Achilles, a story of same-sex romance set in the Greek age of heroes.

新出道的美国小说家玛德琳·米勒凭作品《阿基里斯之歌》获得2012年橘子小说奖，该著讲述的是罗马英雄时代一个同性恋情的故事。

"This is a more than worthy³ winner - original, passionate⁴, inventive and uplifting," said Joanna Trollope, chair of judges.

"Homer would be proud of her," she said of the former classics teacher.

The £30,000 prize recognises English language fiction written by women.

This year's prize is the last to carry the Orange name, after the mobile services company announced last week it was ending its 17-year sponsorship.

Miller is the fourth American author in a row to win the annual prize.

The other novelists on the shortlist were former winner Ann Patchett for State of Wonder, Esi Edugyan for Half Blood Blues⁵, Anne Enright for The Forgotten, Georgina Harding for Painter of Silence, and Cynthia Ozick for Foreign Bodies.

Miller received her prize - and a bronze figurine known as "a Bessie" - at an awards ceremony at London's Royal Festival Hall on Wednesday evening.

The Song of Achilles was first published by Bloomsbury in September 2011.

The story sees Patroclus, an awkward young prince, exiled to Phthia where he befriends the strong, beautiful Achilles.

As their relationship deepens, word comes that Helen of Sparta has been kidnapped and the pair journey to Troy.

Reviewers have picked up on the novel's racy sword-and-sandals plotline.

"There is plenty of sexual tension (and actual sex), much of it homoerotic: Brokeback Mountain sets sail for Troy," said The Independent's Viv Groskop.

"It's an entirely⁶ successful piece of writing, sitting comfortably between literary and commercial genres⁷."

But the New York Times' Daniel Mendelsohn was unconvinced: "The real Achilles' heel of this book is tone - one made disastrously⁸ worse by the author's decision to metamorphose（变质） an ancient story of heroes into a modern tale of hormones⁹."

The only first-time writer on the shortlist, Boston-born Miller graduated from Brown University with a BA and MA in Classics.

She has also studied at the Yale School of Drama specialising in adapting classical tales for a modern audience.

She worked on The Song of Achilles for 10 years, and lives in New England, where she teaches Latin and writes.

Alongside Joanna Trollope on the judging panel were writers and broadcasters Lisa Appignanesi, Victoria Derbyshire, Natalie Haynes and Natasha Kaplinsky.