Andrew Miller and Kiran Desai are favorites to win the Booker Prize for fiction
By JILL LAWLESS
Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — British novelist Andrew Miller and Indian author Kiran Desai are oddsmakers’ favorites to win the Booker Prize for fiction at a ceremony in London on Monday.
They are among six finalists for the coveted literary award, which bring a 50,000-pound ($66,000) payday and a big boost to the winner’s sales and profile.
This year’s winner, chosen from among 153 submitted novels, is being picked by a judging panel that includes Irish writer Roddy Doyle and “Sex and the City” star Sarah Jessica Parker.
U.K. bookmaker William Hill on Friday put 15-8 odds on Miller taking the trophy for “The Land in Winter,” a tale of love and secrets centered on two couples in rural England during the frigid winter of 1962-63. Miller, 64, was previously a Booker finalist in 2001 for “Oxygen.”
Desai, 54, was narrowly behind with 2-1 odds for “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” her first novel in two decades. The almost 700-page tale of two young Indians making their way in the United States around 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 be the fifth two-time Booker winner, joining J.M. Coetzee, Peter Carey, Margaret Atwood and Hilary Mantel.
Online bookmaker Betway also made Miller the front-runner, followed by Desai.
Hungarian-British writer David Szalay’s “Flesh,” which charts one man’s life across decades with unadorned naturalism, also was attracting bets in the days before the ceremony, according to bookies.
The other contenders are Susan Choi’s twisty family saga “Flashlight”; Katie Kitamura’s tale of acting and identity, “Audition”; and midlife-crisis road trip “The Rest of Our Lives” by Ben Markovits.
Doyle — a Booker winner himself in 1993 for “Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha” – has said that all six books tackle big issues, including migration and class, in a “brilliantly human” way.
The Booker Prize was founded in 1969 and has established a reputation for transforming writers’ careers. Its winners have included Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Arundhati Roy and Samantha Harvey, who took the 2024 prize for space station story “Orbital.”
Originally open to English-language novels from the U.K., Ireland and the Commonwealth, the prize expanded in 2014 to admit American writers. Worries about an American takeover have largely proved unfounded, though this year’s six finalists include three U.S. writers — Choi, Kitamura and Markovits — and a fourth, Desai, who has long lived in New York.
