Biographer wins top Whitbread

Hilary Spurling has won Britain’s lucrative Whitbread Book Awards for “Matisse the Master,” the second volume of a biography of the great painter.

The Whitbread’s top prize goes to one of the winners of prizes already awarded in five categories -- novel, first novel, poetry, biography and children’s book. Each category winner receives $8,700; Spurling, 65, receives an additional $43,000 for winning the Whitbread Book of the Year award.