2 decades after maiden win, Kiran Desai is back in Booker shortlist

Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai is a favourite to win the coveted fiction trophy for a second time with "The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny", her first novel in two decades.

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The 53-year-old Delhi-born author was named on a US-dominated six-book shortlist announced on Tuesday by a judging panel that includes Irish writer Roddy Doyle and actor Sarah Jessica Parker.

"An intimate and expansive epic about two people finding a pathway to love and each other.

Rich in meditations about class, race and nationhood, this book has it all," said the judges.

The nearly 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.

Two previous Booker finalists are up for the £50,000 ($68,000) prize again: UK writer Andrew Miller for "The Land in Winter," set during an early-1960s cold snap, and Hungarian-British writer David Szalay for "Flesh," which charts one man's life across decades.

Three novels by Americans complete the list: Susan Choi's family saga "Flashlight"; Katie Kitamura's tale of acting and identity, "Audition"; and midlifecrisis road trip "The Rest of Our Lives" by Ben Markovits.