Carol Ann Duffy awarded PEN Pinter Prize

Poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy has been awarded the 2012 PEN Pinter Prize for outstanding contribution to literature.

Established in 2009, the prize is named in memory of the playwright Harold Pinter and awarded each year to a British writer of exceptional literary merit, with previous recipients including Sir David Hare, Hanif Kureishi and Tony Harrison.

Duffy was chosen by a panel comprising Hare, Lord Melvyn Bragg, PEN president Gillian Slovo and Pinter's widow, Lady Antonia Fraser, who described the current Poet Laureate as a 'great writer'.

'She has an ability to make important points through her work and comments on contemporary events directly in a way we do not believe a Poet Laureate has done before,' Lady Fraser added.

The prize aims to honour a writer who displays 'fierce intellectual determination to define the real truth of our lives and societies' and Duffy said she was delighted to have been recognised by the panel.

'I am hugely honoured and moved to receive an award which commemorates one of the greatest English writers of the 20th Century,' she added.

It is the latest in a long line of accolades for Duffy, who became the first ever female Poet Laureate in 2009 and also scooped the Costa Poetry Award last year for her acclaimed collection The Bees.