WILLIAM HILL ANNOUNCES ODDS FOR
THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE 2009

Australian Peter Carey is favourite to win

The USA has three writers with 10/1 odds or better

The winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2009 will be announced on Wednesday 27th May ahead of the award ceremony in Dublin on Thursday 25th June. In anticipation of the winner announcement, the bookmakers William Hill have released the odds for the writers on the list of contenders.

The William Hill odds for the Man Booker International Prize 2009 are as follows:

Peter Carey (Australia) - 6/1
Arnošt Lustig (Czech Republic) - 7/1
V.S. Naipaul (Trinidad/India) - 8/1
Evan S. Connell (USA) - 9/1
E.L. Doctorow (USA) - 10/1
Joyce Carol Oates (USA) - 10/1
Mahasweta Devi (India) - 12/1
Ngugi Wa Thiong’O (Kenya) - 12/1
Ludmila Ulitskaya (Russia) - 12/1
Antonio Tabucchi (Italy) - 14/1
Alice Munro (Canada) - 16/1
James Kelman (UK) - 20/1
Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru) - 20/1
Dubravka Ugresic (Croatia) - 20/1

Australian Peter Carey, author of Oscar and Lucinda and True History of the Kelly Gang, for both of which he was awarded a Man Booker Prize for Fiction, is the favourite to win with odds of 6/1. He is closely followed by Czech author, Arnošt Lustig, who has odds of 7/1 and another Man Booker Prize for Fiction winner, Indian author V.S. Naipaul who has odds of 8/1.

UK author James Kelman, Peruvian author Mario Vargas Llosa and Croatian author Dubravka Ugresic are given an outside chance at 20/1.

The judges’ decision will be announced on Wednesday 27th May and the award ceremony will take place at Trinity College, Dublin on Thursday 25th June.

The judging panel for this year’s Man Booker International Prize is: Jane Smiley, writer; Amit Chaudhuri, writer, academic and musician; and writer, film script writer and essayist, Andrey Kurkov.