Aravind Adiga c: Mark Pringle

Bookies disagree over frontrunners

Aravind Adiga c: Mark Pringle

Adiga hot on the heels of Rushdie

31 July 2008


After William Hill published their Man Booker Prize odds putting Joseph O'Neill's Netherland as favourite to win the prize, Ladbroke's are backing Salman Rushdie for a second win.  This is the sixth time Rushdie has been longlisted, with four of his novels going on to be shortlisted.  Midnight's Children won in 1981, going on to win the Booker of Bookers and more recently the Best of the Booker.

Aravind Adiga's first novel, The White Tiger, follows hot on the heels of Rushdie's latest, The Enchantress of Florence.  Adiga, Time magazine's asia correspondent, exposes the underbelly of India's new Tiger economy using a series of letters sent by her main character, Balram, to the Chinese prime minister.

The full Ladbroke's odds are:

4/1 Salman Rushdie - The Enchantress of Florence
5/1 Aravind Adiga - The White Tiger
6/1 Joseph O'Neill - Netherland
6/1 Linda Grant - The Clothes on Their Backs
10/1 Tom Rob Smith - Child 44
10/1 Amitav Ghosh - Sea of Poppies
12/1 Sebastian Barry  -The Secret Scripture
12/1 John Berger - From A to X
12/1 Michelle de Krester - The Lost Dog
12/1 Gaynor Arnold - Girl in a Blue Dress
14/1 Mohammed Hanif - A Case of Exploding Mangoes
14/1 Philip Hensher - The Northern Clemency
16/1 Steve Toltz - A Fraction of the Whole

Read the William Hill odds.

Find out more about this year's longlisted titles.

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