Booker Prize Winner Kiran Desai Back in Longlist With 'Vast, Immersive' New Novel

Booker Prize-winning author Kiran Desai on Tuesday returned to the coveted literary award longlist with 'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny', a novel described by the judges as a "vast and immersive" tale about a pair of young Indians in America.

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The 53-year-old Delhi-born author, who won the Booker Prize 19 years ago in 2006 with 'The Inheritance of Loss', joins 12 writers from around the world for the so-called "Booker Dozen" of 13 books that will be whittled down to six shortlisted titles by September.

Desai's latest novel stands out as the longest on the longlist, weighing in at 667 pages and published by Hamish Hamilton. The shortest is "Universality" by Natasha Brown at 156 pages.

"She has spent almost 20 years writing 'The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny'. Should she win this year, she would become the fifth double winner in the prize's 56-year history," Booker Prize Foundation said in a statement.

"Desai has a family history with the prize: her mother Anita Desai was shortlisted for the Booker three times," it noted.