Kiwi is little-known favourite -

Story from Sydney Morning Herald today (Saturday)

IN BRITAIN he is "unknown" and a "dark horse", but the bookies' favourite to win the 2007 Man Booker Prize is one of New Zealand's most respected authors.

Lloyd Jones's Mister Pip is one of six novels on the shortlist for the £50,000 ($120,000) international prize, announced yesterday. Rapid sales on Amazon and heavy betting propelled him to the 2/1 favourite ahead of the Booker veteran Ian McEwan.
"We have seen an unprecedented gamble on this virtually unknown writer," said Graham Sharpe, of the bookmakers William Hill.

Jones won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize and New Zealand's Montana Award for Mister Pip, his 12th book, which is about a teacher who introduces his pupils to Dickens's Great Expectations amid civil war on the Pacific island of Bougainville.
Living in Berlin on a writer's residency, Jones attended the Booker shortlist announcement in London. He was "very happy", said his Australian publisher, Michael Heyward of Text Publishing.

"The book is a revelation: it tells us a story we haven't heard about things that happened on our doorstep," said Heyward, who has sold rights to the book in 15 countries.
"It is a celebrated book and the fact that the bookies in the UK were a bit slow to catch on to it is a big advantage for people who got on to it at 20/1."

Heyward published two Australian books that were shortlisted for last year's Man Booker, The Secret River by Kate Grenville and Carry Me Down by M.J. Hyland. But he said "betting on the Booker is like betting on the dogs at Wagga Wagga".
The other shortlisted books this year, chosen from a list of 13, are On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan (who won in 1991 for Amsterdam), Darkmans by Nicola Barker, The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, The Gathering by Anne Enright and Animal's People by Indra Sinha.