Barbarian Days, a “compelling, elegiac and profound” memoir about surfing by the veteran New Yorker war reporter William Finnegan, has won this year’s William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award.

The book, which took nearly 20 years to write and has already won the Pulitzer Prize for literature, charts the story of Finnegan’s near 50-year immersion in the sport, starting in 1960s California and Hawaii and continuing to the present day.

It is about the waves that thrilled and nearly killed him; the search for transcendence; about what he calls the “disabling enchantment” of his hobby that he enjoys between assignments to some of the most dangerous places on the planet.

Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life, by William Finnegan, was the winner of this year’s William Hill Sports Book award. Photograph: Penguin Books

John Inverdale, who handed Finnegan the award, said that the decision of the judges had been unanimous. “People thought this was a genuinely extraordinary book, about life – about a certain kind of life. It’s a bit hedonistic. It’s a bit reckless. A lot of people will identify with it. A lot of people will envy it. If you read it with an open mind, you will realise what an amazing thing life is and having some kind of engagement and passion for sport enables you to live life to the full.”

Another judge, Mark Lawson, agreed the book was a worthy winner although he conceded that some on the panel had struggled to initially believe that surfing should be considered as a sport. “The autobiographical detail and precision of the writing also make it rewarding to those who might think they would struggle to get on board with surfing as a subject,” he said.

As well as a £28,000 cheque, Finnegan was awarded a William Hill bet worth £2,500 and an exclusive day at the races. He now joins an illustrious list of past winners including Nick Hornby, Duncan Hamilton, Donald McRae, Anna Krien and David Goldblatt.