Despite being described by the chair of the Man Booker prize judges as "challenging", Anna Burns's story of sexual intimidation during the Troubles, Milkman, has proved a hit with readers, its sales soaring in the first days after winning the prize.
Already the second bestselling title on the shortlist before the prize was announced last Tuesday, Milkman racked up sales of 9,466 copies in the four days to Saturday, according to book sales monitor Nielsen BookScan, and now sits in ninth place in The Bookseller's Top 50, ahead of titles by Ian Rankin, Tina Turner and Joanna Trollope. The previous week, it had sold 963 copies, with around 5,000 copies sold altogether. Her publisher, Faber, has reprinted 120,000 copies since to meet demand, bringing the total number of copies of Milkman in print to 180,000.