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British novelist Andrew Miller and Indian Writer Kiran Desai is oddsmakers’ favorite to win booker prize for fiction at a festival in London On Monday.
He is among six finalists for the prestigious literary prize, which brings a salary of 50,000 pounds ($66,000) and a major boost to the winner’s sales and profile.
This year’s winner, chosen from 153 novels submitted, is being selected by a judging panel that includes Irish author Roddy Doyle and “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker.
uk bookmaker William Hill On Friday, Miller had 15-8 odds on taking the trophy for “The Land in Winter,” a story of love and secrets centering on two couples in rural England during the harsh winter of 1962-63. 64-year-old Miller first booker Finalist for “Oxygen” in 2001.
Desai, 54, went down by 2-1 odds for “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny”, her first novel in two decades. The nearly 700-page story of two young Indians making their way to the United States at the turn of the millennium is Desai’s third novel and her first since “The Inheritance of Loss,” which won the Booker Prize in 2006.
If she takes the prize, Desai will become the fifth two-time Booker winner, joining JM Coetzee, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel.
Online bookmaker Betway also placed Miller in the lead, followed by Desai.
Hungarian-British author David Szalay’s “Flesh,” which portrays decades of one man’s life with ornate naturalism, was also attracting betting in the days before the ceremony, according to bookmakers.
Other contenders are Susan Choi’s twisty family saga “Flashlight”; Katie Kitamura’s story of acting and identity, “Audition”; and the midlife-crisis road trip “The Rest of Our Lives” by Ben Markowitz.
Doyle – himself a Booker winner in 1993 for “Paddy Clark Ha Ha Ha” – has said that all six books deal with big issues, including migration and class, in a “wonderfully humane” way.
The Booker Prize was established in 1969 and has established a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Its winners include Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Samantha Harvey, who won the 2024 award for the space station story “Orbital”.
Originally open to English-language novels from the UK, Ireland and the Commonwealth, the award was expanded in 2014 to admit American writers. Concerns about American takeover have proven largely unfounded, although this year’s six finalists include three American writers – Choi, Kitamura and Markowitz – and a fourth, Desai, who has long lived in New York.