5 Authors of Indian origin among 51 vying for Golden Man Booker Prize

Five authors of Indian origin are in the running for a one-off special Golden Man Booker Prize to mark the literary award’s 50th anniversary this year: V.S. Naipaul for his 1971 winner “In a Free State”; Salman Rushdie for “Midnight’s Children” (1981); Arundhati Roy for “The God of Small Things” (1997); Kiran Desai for “The Inheritance of Loss” (2006); and Aravind Adiga for “The White Tiger” (2008).

Five judges will review the authors, followed by a vote from the public. Each judge has been assigned a decade from which to select a winner for a “Golden Five” shortlist, which will be revealed at Hay literary festival on May 26, the Man Booker Foundation announced. The five books will then be put to a public vote.

Readers will have one month to select their favorite and decide the overall winner. The winner will be revealed at the Man Booker 50 festival at London’s Southbank Centre on July 8.

The judges for the Golden Booker Prize include writer and editor Robert McCrum (1970s); poet Lemn Sissay (1980s); novelist Kamila Shamsie (1990s); broadcaster and novelist Simon Mayo (2000s); and poet Hollie McNish (2010s). The Golden Man Booker has 51 past winners in contention including literary heavyweights like Iris Murdoch, Nadine Gordimer, J.M. Coetzee and Margaret Atwood, who are all still in print.

They will be back under the spotlight to reaffirm their relevance with readers today, the foundation said in a statement. Rushdie is considered likely a favorite, the Guardian reports, after having already won the Best of Booker award in 2008, to mark the prize’s 40th anniversary, and the Booker of Bookers in 1993, for its 25th birthday.