The winner of the 2014 Man Booker Prize for literature, Richard Flanagan, has criticised the federal government's environmental policies saying they have made him "ashamed to be an Australian".

Mr Flanagan was named on Wednesday morning local time the winner of the prestigious award for his novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, which is set during the construction of the Thai Burma railway in World War II.

Mr Flanagan, who lives in Tasmania, is a long time campaigner for the preservation of the state's old growth forests.