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Kiran Desai nominated for Orange Prize

Hasan Suroor

Impressive shortlist of six includes novelists from America, China and Nigeria

Kiran Desai

LONDON: Kiran Desai's Booker Prize-winning novel, The Inheritance of Loss, has been nominated for the £30,000 Orange Prize for fiction, awarded every year to a woman novelist writing in English.

She leads a shortlist of six, which includes novelists from America, China and Nigeria. The judges hailed the list as "incredibly exciting."

"It represents six beautifully crafted pieces of work that are as accessible as they are fascinating. That this outstanding writing should come from such diverse sources that includes five different nationalities, a world famous author, as well as a first-time novelist, is doubly thrilling," said the chairperson of the judges, Muriel Gray, a broadcaster.

Desai, who last year became the youngest woman to win a Booker, will be up against Chinese writer Xiaolu Guo for her intriguingly-titled book A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers; Nigeria's Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie for Half of a Yellow Sun; Ireland's Jane Harris for The Observations; America's Anne Tyler for Digging to America; and Britain's Rachel Cusk for Arlington Park.

Celebrates excellence

Last year the prize went to Zadie Smith for On Beauty. Other previous winners include Lionel Shriver for We Need to Talk About Kevin, and Andrea Levy for Small Island.

The award, which has often been criticised for slotting writers into `male' and `female' boxes, celebrates "excellence, originality and accessibility in women's writing."

Desai's novel, her second work of fiction, has been widely praised for its exploration of multiculturalism and globalisation.

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