LONDON, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- English singer-songwriter P.J. Harvey won a second Mercury award Tuesday, 10 years after the 2001 terrorist attacks kept her from receiving her first in person.
She was honored for "Let England Shake," an album inspired by the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed -- as well as the work of T.S. Eliot and Harold Pinter, The Independent reported.
"When I last won I was in Washington D.C., watching the Pentagon burn from my hotel window," Harvey said as she accepted the Mercury trophy. "So much has happened since then. I wanted to make something meaningful and to make something that would last."
The prize, which includes 20,000 pounds ($32,000) in cash, is known formally as the Barclaycard Mercury Prize and is given for the best album produced in Britain and Ireland.
Simon Frith, who headed this year's judging committee, said Harvey's album was the unanimous choice.
"It's about something," he said. "It's a kind of song cycle. There's nothing you can imagine changing in it."
Harvey and the other nominees performed during the ceremony at the Grosvenor Hotel in London.
