Andrew Miller and Kiran Desai Lead Booker Prize Contenders in London Ceremony

LONDON — British novelist Andrew Miller and Indian author Kiran Desai are the leading candidates to win the Booker Prize for Fiction at a ceremony on Monday evening. They are among six finalists competing for the prestigious award, which includes a £50,000 ($66,000) prize and significant recognition.

This year’s winner will be selected from 153 submitted novels by a panel that includes Irish author Roddy Doyle and actor Sarah Jessica Parker. According to U.K. bookmaker William Hill, Miller holds the best odds at 15-8 for his work, “The Land in Winter,” a novel about love and secrets involving two couples in rural England during the harsh winter of 1962-63. Miller, 64, was previously nominated for the Booker Prize in 2001 for his novel “Oxygen.”

Desai, 54, closely trails Miller with 2-1 odds for her latest novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” which is her first book in nearly 20 years. The nearly 700-page narrative follows two young Indians as they adapt to life in the U.S. at the turn of the millennium. If successful, Desai would become one of five authors to win the Booker Prize twice, joining the ranks of J.M. Coetzee and Margaret Atwood.

Also drawing attention from bettors is David Szalay’s “Flesh,” a story examining a man’s life over several decades. The other shortlisted candidates include Susan Choi’s “Flashlight,” Katie Kitamura’s “Audition,” and Ben Markovits’s “The Rest of Our Lives.”

Doyle noted that all six books engage with significant themes, such as migration and class, presenting them in a “brilliantly human” manner. The Booker Prize, established in 1969, has a reputation for changing the careers of its winners. Previous recipients include notable authors like Salman Rushdie and Ian McEwan.

This year’s finalists also reflect a diverse literary landscape, with three authors from the U.S. and Desai, who has lived in New York for many years. As anticipation builds for Monday’s prize announcement, both Miller and Desai remain key contenders.