Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The Indian-born novelist Kiran Desai triumphed by winning the $93,411 Man Booker prize with her second novel, The Inheritance of Loss, a story rich with sadness about globalisation and with joy at the small surviving intimacies of Indian village life.
She beat the bookies, who put her fifth out of six in the award shortlist, rating her as a 5/1 outsider against odds of 6-4 on Sarah Waters’ The Night Watch, the favourite.
And at her first attempt Desai, 37, not only became the youngest woman to win but achieved a victory which repeatedly eluded her mother. The esteemed Indian novelist Anita Desai — to whom The Inheritance of Loss is dedicated — has been shortlisted for the prize three times.
This year’s head judge, Hermione Lee, left no doubt that it was “the strength of the book’s humanity” which gave it the edge after a long and passionate debate among the panel. “It is a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness,” Professor Lee said. “Her mother will be proud of her”.
John Sutherland, chairman of last year’s Man Booker judges and author of How to Read a Novel, said: “Desai’s novel registers the multicultural reverberations of the new millennium, with the sensitive instrumentality of fiction, as Jhabvala and Rushdie did in previous eras.”
Rodney Troubridge, buyer for the bookshop chain Waterstone’s, said, “This wonderful novel will be snapped up by our customers — it’s a great winner.”
On September 14, when the shortlist of six titles was unveiled, it became evident that Prof Lee and her fellow judges had done something rare in the 38-year annals of the Booker: they had dumped the famous established writers and mainly picked the little-known newcomers.
Hisham Matar (with his first novel), Desai and MJ Hyland (also a second novel) sprang from almost nowhere to be contenders for the world’s foremost literary award.
After the initial surprise, few of those who have read all the titles disagree that the newcomers Matar, Desai and Hyland were well-merited choices.
— The Guardian
The rest of the pack
● The Night Watch, Sarah Waters
● In the Country of Men, Hisham Matar
● Mother’s Milk, Edward St Aubyn
● Carry Me Down, M J Hyland
● The Secret River, Kate Grenville
John Ezard
