LONDON – Booker Prize -winning Indian author Kiran Desai is a favorite to win the coveted fiction trophy for a second time with her first novel in two decades.

“The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny” is on a U.S.-dominated six-book shortlist announced Tuesday by a judging panel that includes Irish writer Roddy Doyle and actor Sarah Jessica Parker . The almost 700-page tale of two young Indians making their way in the United States is Desai’s third novel and her first since “The Inheritance of Loss,” which won the Booker Prize in 2006.

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