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Booker contender's murky past

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON: A leading contender for next week's Booker Prize has scandalised his admirers by admitting that he has had a murky past which included conning his best friend and running up huge debts that he has yet to clear. The writer DBC Pierre, whose first novel "Vernon God Little'' is among the bookies' hot favourite for the £50,000 prize, has said that he was a drug-addict, a gambler and had been involved in questionable deals before he decided to turn a new leaf. Even his name is not real. It stands for "Dirty But Clean'' Pierre which he described in an interview to The Guardian as a symbolic statement that he was making a "new start'', putting his life of "deceit and failure'' behind him. Mr Pierre, whose real name is Peter Finlay, said, "I am not proud of what I have done,'' he told the newspaper admitted that he had let down "some very fine people who believed in me''.

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