Mukherjee is Man Booker favourite

The winner of the Man Booker Prize is announced later with British author Neel Mukherjee the bookies’ favourite to take the £50,000 prize.

Mukherjee’s The Lives Of Others, a sweeping account of life in 1960s Calcutta, is 5/2 favourite to win with bookmakers William Hill.

It is the first year that the prize is open to all authors writing in English, regardless of nationality.

The winner will be announced at London’s Guildhall on Tuesday night.

Former Booker winner Howard Jacobson is among three British writers, two Americans and an Australian on this year’s shortlist.

Also on the list are Ali Smith, Joshua Ferris, Karen Joy Fowler and Richard Flanagan, who is next in the betting at 3/1.

Jacobson, who won in 2010 for his comic novel The Finkler Question, is nominated for his futuristic love story J.

It features two main characters who inhabit a world where the past is not spoken about and is shrouded in suspicion, referred to as “What Happened, If It Happened”.