By Caroline Briggs BBC News entertainment reporter

Banville is a former literary editor of the Irish Times Watch an interview

The County Wexford-born writer scooped the prestigious £50,000 prize for his poignant tale about grief, love and childhood.

Banville told the BBC News website he was feeling "lightly cooked" after a hectic few hours in the wake of his win.

He admits to being more than a little surprised to take the award ahead of a shortlist that included Julian Barnes, Zadie Smith, Sebastian Barry, Kazuo Ishiguro and Ali Smith.

"In the early days we thought we might stand a chance but by the time the announcement came I had pretty much reconciled myself to losing," he said.

"The Booker is still a very large prize and one of those prizes that everyone knows about, and because it was a very strong year for fiction, there is an added satisfaction.

"Any of them could have won and it would have been a worthy win - and I'm not just being modest."

Even though I am now on the brink of old age, childhood is still a source of material John Banville

It was the second time Banville, whose first book was published in 1970, had been nominated for the literary prize.

In 1989 his novel The Book of Evidence lost out to Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day.

'Caught in grief'

Banville said The Sea's dark and obsessive themes may have struck a chord with the judges on a "deep level".

"The main character is a man who is caught in grief, but he has lots of beautiful memories from his childhood and I suppose that appeals to people," he said.

"The Sea is very much about remembering the far past and that delicate way in which pre-teenagers used to fall in love. Nothing quite as pure ever happens again."

The 59-year-old admits much of his novel is autobiographical and draws heavily on his own memories from childhood.

BOOKER SHORTLIST Julian Barnes - Arthur and George Kazuo Ishiguro - Never Let Me Go Zadie Smith - On Beauty Sebastian Barry - A Long Long Way John Banville - The Sea Ali Smith - The Accidental Booker author profiles

"A lot of the inspiration for art comes out of childhood and even though I am now on the brink of old age, childhood is still a source of material.

"A lot of the memories in The Sea are mine and a little seaside town called Rosslare in the south-east corner of Wexford where we spent our summers as a child.

"It is where I wanted to write about when I started the book and that was much more important than the narrator Max Moreland, who became more dominant as the book went on."

Banville is philosophical about comparisons his work has drawn to that of fellow Irishman and literary giant Samuel Beckett, who Banville acknowledges as his mentor.

"All Irish writers are either followers of James Joyce or of Beckett and I would be closer to Beckett than to Joyce," he explained.

"Beckett wrote obsessive, dense first person narrative and The Sea is dense and in the first person or, as Beckett used to say, the last person narrative."

Banville is the first Irish winner of the Booker Prize since Roddy Doyle won with Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha in 1993.

Future

He said Irish fiction appeared to be going strong, but added it had changed since he first started out.

Amazed, and disappointed, I would go so far as to say appalled, for reasons that are obscure to me, since why should I desire change, I who have come back to live amidst the rubble of the past? An extract from The Sea

"I think there is much more concentration now on urban issues.

"Irish writing always tended towards the pastoral because we were a land-based society rather than a city-based society. But that has changed now and you can see that in books by people like Roddy Doyle.

"They are much more concerned with the way people live today than my generation was. We were more concerned with language and style."

As Banville prepares to reap the recognition and financial rewards a Booker win can bring, he is already planning for the future.

"The next novel is already beginning to move its tentacles," he explained.

"I'll probably write a longer book but I might try to relax a little bit and take my time.

"But as Woody Allen used to say when someone told him to mellow, 'I don't do mellow - I go from raw to rot'.

"If I stop writing now, I'll start rotting."