Kiran Desai wins Booker Prize

Indian-origin writer Kiran Desai has been awarded this year's prestigious Man Booker Prize for her novel 'The Inheritance of Loss'.

Desai, the youngest ever female recipient of the prize beat five other authors, including favourite Sarah Waters to win the 50,000-pound award. The award was announced by the Booker prize committee last night.

Desai's book, a cross-continental saga set in New York and India with a teenage girl as the protagonist, explores contemporary issues like multiculturalism, fundamentalism and terrorist violence.

The other five books which had made it to the shortlist were Kate Grenville's The Secret River, M J Hyland's Carry Me Down, Hisham Matar's In the Country of Men, Edward St Aubyn's Mother's Milk and Sarah Waters's The Night Watch.

Kiran Desai is the daughter of noted writer Anita Desai, who has been shortlisted for the prize three times in the 1980s.