Indian writer Kiran Desai won Britain's prestigious Man Booker Prize Tuesday for
"The Inheritance of Loss," a cross-continental saga that moves from the
Himalayas to New York City.

Desai, daughter of novelist Anita Desai, had been one of the favorites for the
50,000 pound (US$93,000, euro74,000) prize.

Born in 1971 and educated in India, England and the United States, Desai
published her first novel, "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard," in

The 35-year-old, who was considered to be among the frontrunners for the prize,
held off the challenge of five other nominees, including the favorite Sarah
Waters and her novel "The Night Watch".

The other finalists were "In The Country Of Men," Hisham Matar's
semi-autobiographical first novel about childhood in Moammar Gadhafi's Libya;
"The Secret River," Kate Grenville's tale of life in a 19th-century Australian
penal colony; "Carry Me Down," the story of an unusual boy, by Irish-Australian
novelist M.J. Hyland; and "Mother's Milk," a portrait of a rich but
dysfunctional family by English writer Edward St. Aubyn.
