The Bee Sting, the fourth book by the Dublin-born novelist, won book of the year and £30,000 (€35,000). It tells the story of an Irish family that experiences emotional and financial hardships after the 2008 banking crisis.

Murray won the fiction category, and he was chosen for the overall prize pool along with four other authors who had won £5,000 apiece in their respective categories.

Award-winning author Bernardine Evaristo hosted the ceremony on Thursday in London, where Murray was declared the winner.

Murray's work is a beautifully ambitious and engrossing novel about a family unravelling against the backdrop of Ireland's economic and social crises of the late aughts, according to Evaristo, the chairwoman of the judges.

"Written with great wit and humanity, The Bee Sting is a suspenseful and astonishing work of language featuring a cast of complex characters who are trapped in their past, enmeshed in the present, and yearning for a different future."

"In a rich, multi-layered novel that is both epic and intimate in scale, Paul Murray is a supremely gifted storyteller as we learn of unspoken secrets and desires in difficult and sometimes dangerous situations."

She praised the book as "fiction of the finest calibre" and stated that it was unanimously selected by the jury to be the Nero Book Awards' first book of the year.

"Funny and tragic in equal measure," is how one reviewer puts The Bee Sting, which takes place in rural Ireland following the 2008 financial meltdown.

It centres on an Irish middle-class family whose finances are negatively impacted by the country's banking crisis.

The 650-page book, written by Irish author Murray during the pandemic, has been shortlisted for several prizes, including the 2023 Booker Prize, however Murray lost to fellow Irish writer Paul Lynch, whose Prophet Song won.

Additionally, it was named last year's book of the year by A Post Irish Book Awards.

Scottish comedian Fern Brady, who won in the non-fiction category for her memoir Strong Female Character, which describes her experience being diagnosed with autism, defeated fierce opposition to take home the overall prize.

The murder mystery The Swifts, with illustrations by Claire Powell, won the children's fiction category. Beth Lincoln, a writer from Newcastle, was the winner.

Close To Home, written by Belfast author Michael Magee, won the inaugural fiction prize. It tells the tale of a young man who returns home to the city after graduating from college and must deal with the fallout from an attack he committed at a party.

The four category winners of the awards, which honour the craft of writing and were introduced by high street coffee brand Caffe Nero in 2023, were chosen by a panel of twelve judges who had chosen books from Britain and Ireland during the previous twelve months.