Countdown to Literature Nobel: Amos Oz? Mahasweta Devi? Odds are...

By Ashish Mehta, New Delhi, Oct 7 : Bookies are betting heavily on Israeli author Amos Oz to win the coveted Nobel Prize in Literature to be announced Thursday, though odds are accepted for a long list of authors including India's Mahasweta Devi.

Blogs and literary groups discussing the prize agree that it is not quite predictable, but the benchmark for discussion is set by the British bookies, Ladbrokes, which has been accepting bets on the prize winner for a while.

This year's lineup is is led by Amos Oz (4/1), followed by Assia Djebar - pen-name of Algeria's Fatima-Zohra Imalayen (5/1), American Joyce Carol Oates (5/1).

One name that showed some upward movement in the last few days is Romanian-born German-speaking Herta M�ller (7/1) - she is clubbed with another American great, Philip Roth (7/1).

Haruki Murakami, Japan's best-known novelist who has been in the Nobel queue for a while, is placed at 9/1 while Ismail Kadare has moved up to 10/1.

The only India interest in the Ladbrokes list is Bengali novelist-activist Mahasweta Devi at 50/1 - she was in the same range last year - and Salman Rushdie at 80/1.