Booker Prize Winner Announced

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

Ms. Desai, daughter of novelist Anita Desai, had been one of the favorites for the $93,000 prize.

Born in 1971 and educated in India, England, and America, Ms. Desai published her first novel, "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard," in 1998.

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

The other finalists were: "In The Country of Men," Hisham Matar's semi-autobiographical first novel about childhood in Muammar 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 an English writer, Edward St. Aubyn.