Kiran Desai becomes youngest woman to win Booker Prize

London, Oct 11 (UNI) Nearly a decade after Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for 'The God of Small Things', Indian writing in English was once again on the top of the world with Kiran Desai bagging the 50,000-pound award while becoming the youngest-ever woman to win it.

Ms Desai beat five other novelists to win the prize for her second novel, 'The Inheritance of Loss'.

The 35-year-old author's mother and well known Indian novelist Anita Desai was shortlisted three times for the Booker though she did not win in any of the attempts.

''I didn't expect to win. I don't have a speech,'' Desai, a student of creative writing at Columbia University in the US, said while accepting the award at a ceremony at Guildhall here last night.

In 1997, Arundhati Roy became the first Indian to win the award though V S Naipaul and Salman Rushdie, both ethnic Indians, also won the prize before her.

'The Inheritance of Loss' deals with life in an Indian village.

It tells the story of a judge who wants to lead a retired life in the Himalayas, but whose life completely changes with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter and her romance.

In 1991, Ben Okri, at the age of 32, became the youngest person ever to win the Booker Prize.

The other contenders for the prize were Sarah Waters's 'The Night Watch', Hisham Matar's 'In the Country of Men', Kate Grenville's 'The Secret River', M J Hyland's 'Carry Me Down', Edward St Aubyn's 'Mother's Milk'.

''We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2006 is Kiran Desai's The Inheritance of Loss, a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness. The winner was chosen, after a long, passionate and generous debate, from a shortlist of five other strong and original voices,'' said biographer-reviewer Hermoine Lee, chair of this year's jury.

Anita Deasai had made it to the shortlist in 1980 for 'Clear Light of Day' (when William Golding won for 'Rites of Passage'), in 1984 for 'In Custody' (Anita Brookner won for 'Hotel du Lac') and again in 1999 for 'Fasting, Feasting' (J M Coetzee won for the second time after 'The Life and Times of Michael K' for 'Disgrace').

The last time an Indian was shortlisted for the top award in English fiction was in 2002 when Rohinton Mistry's 'Family Matters' eventually lost out to 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel.

Kiran Desai's first novel, 'Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard', was published in 1999. Excerpts from the novel featured in the New Yorker India Fiction issue, and in 'Mirrorwork', Salman Rushdie's controversial anthology of 50 years of Indian writing.

'The Inheritance of Loss', a radiant, funny and moving family saga, has been described by reviewers as ''the best, sweetest, most delightful novel''.

Rushdie, the winner in 1981 for 'The Midnight's Children', has paid tributes to Kiran Desai describing her as a ''terrific writer''.

Set in the north-eastern Himalayas, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, in an isolated and crumbling house, the novel tells the story of an embittered old judge, who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned granddaughter, Sai, and the son of his chatty cook trying to stay a step ahead of US immigration services, this is far from easy.

Naipaul had won the Booker in 1971 for 'In a Free State.' UNI XC-FZ VD HS1911