Kiran Desai was tonight (Tuesday 10th October) named the winner of the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for The Inheritance of Loss, published by Hamish Hamilton.

The Indian-born writer has a strong family tie with the prize as her mother Anita Desai has been shortlisted three times since 1980 but has never won. This year, however, her daughter, Kiran, has won the acclaimed literary prize.

Author of the 1998 universally praised Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard, Desai is the first woman to win the Man Booker since 2000 when Margaret Atwood scooped the prize with The Blind Assassin. Her winning book, The Inheritance of Loss, is a radiant, funny and moving family saga and has been described by reviewers as ‘the best, sweetest, most delightful novel’.

This is the first time that Hamish Hamilton has published a Man Booker Prize winner although they had two shortlisted authors in 2005.

Chair of the judges, Hermione Lee, made the announcement at the awards dinner at the Guildhall, London, which was broadcast live on the BBC 10 O’ Clock News. Harvey McGrath, Chairman of Man Group plc, presented Kiran Desai with a cheque for £50,000.

Hermione Lee comments,

“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.”

Over and above her prize of £50,000, Kiran Desai is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction is: Hermione Lee (Chair), biographer, academic and reviewer; Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award-winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn; and actor Fiona Shaw.

‘Kiran Desai is a terrific writer. This book richly fulfils the promise of her first.’ - Salman Rushdie

In the north-eastern Himalayas, at the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga, in an isolated and crumbling house, there lives 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.

When a Nepalese insurgency threatens the blossoming romance between Sai and her handsome tutor, they, too, are forced to consider their colliding interests. The judge must revisit his past, his own journey and his role in this grasping world of conflicting desires - every moment holding out the possibility for hope or betrayal.

Kiran Desai was born in India in 1971, and was educated in India, in England, and the United States. Kiran studied creative writing at Columbia University. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard and The Inheritance of Loss.

For further information or interview requests, please contact: Amelia Fairney, Hamish Hamilton on 020 7010 3247; Amelia.fairney@ukpenguingroup.com.

by Elodie Mazein Thu Oct 5, 9:36 AM ET
LONDON (AFP) - The first official sequel to Peter Pan, entitled "Peter Pan in Scarlet," hit bookstores in Britain and 30 other countries Thursday, 100 years after Scottish author JM Barrie created the character.

More than 500,000 copies of the work written by Geraldine McCaughrean have been published for the launch in English but also in languages including Basque, Chinese, French, Hebrew and Polish.

Some 200,000 copies are available in the United States and 50,000 in Britain.

"I'm more nervous now that I was when I signed on because I just didn't realize in my ignorance that it was going to be quite that big," said McCaughrean, a British children's author.

"I thought it was a very English kind of a book, possibly American, but not Korean and Russian. It's just very exciting," she told BBC radio.

In the new book, Wendy is now a wife and mother.

"They've grown up.... the first thing they have to do is to become children again so that they can go back to Neverland," McCaughrean said.

"And when they get there, they find Neverland seriously changed. It's colder, and more dangerous and more frightening than it was before," she told BBC radio.

"Peter Pan is the same, anarchic little demon as he always was. Tinkerbell is not there at the beginning of the book but there's a new fairy, called Fireflyer, who is all bent on meeting her," she said.

Captain Hook's spirit is stalking Neverland and newcomers include mysterious circus master "The Great Ravello," and a male fairy Fireflyer.

"This is the biggest dilemma that faced me because he disappeared into a crocodile and I don't do ghosts. But his ship is still floating on the lagoon and his spirit of evil is still lurking," she said.

The plot and new characters were secret, with a pre-publication embargo placed on the book. However, in August, an investigation was launched into how a copy of the book came to be leaked to a US newspaper.

A party is scheduled to take place Thursday evening at Kensington Palace to celebrate the launch of the sequel in 34 languages. Author James Matthew Barrie lived near Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, where a Peter Pan statue stands.

McCaughrean was handpicked to write the sequel from nearly 200 authors around the world after London's Great Ormond Street children's hospital launched a search for a writer in August 2004.

Entrants were asked to submit a sample chapter and synopsis.

Great Ormond Street's copyright on the original "Peter Pan", bequeathed to it by Barrie in 1929, runs out next year.

The royalties for the new book will be split between McCaughrean and the hospital.

David Barrie, Barrie's great-great-nephew, said: "JM Barrie could never have guessed that Peter Pan would still be making a vital difference to Great Ormond Street Hospital almost 70 years after his death.

"I'm sure he would be delighted to know that, thanks to Geraldine McCaughrean's sequel, the boy who wouldn't grow up will go on helping children back to health for many years to come."