Kiran Desai, daughter of prominent Indian origin writer Anita Desai, created literary history by becoming the youngest ever woman to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Fiction at the age of 35.

Kiran won the £50,000 prize for her second book, "The Inheritance of Loss", described by reviewers as a “radiant, funny and moving family saga” and ‘the best, sweetest, most delightful novel’.

Three novels by Kiran’s mother, Anita Desai – "Clear Light of Day", "In Custody" and "Fasting, Feasting" – had been earlier shortlisted for the prize but failed to win it.

Noted writer Salman Rushdie once described Kiran as a “terrific writer”.

Chairperson of the judges, Hermione Lee, said at the awards dinner at the Guildhall: “We are delighted to announce that the winner of the Man Booker Prize for 2006 is Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss, a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness.

“The winner was chosen, after a long, passionate and generous debate, from a shortlist of five other strong and original voices.”

Born in India on Sep 3 1971, Kiran is currently a student at Columbia University’s Creative Writing Course. Her first novel "Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard" received accolades from many notable figures and an excerpt was featured in the New Yorker India Fiction issue, and in "Mirrorwork", Salman Rushdie's controversial anthology of 50 years of Indian writing.

Kiran is the first woman to win the Man Booker since 2000 when Margaret Atwood scooped the prize with "The Blind Assassin". Kiran was presented the cheque for £50,000 at the awards dinner.

Over and above the prize money, Kiran is guaranteed a huge increase in sales and recognition worldwide. Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives £2,500 and a designer-bound edition of their book.

The judging panel for the 2006 Man Booker Prize for Fiction was: Hermione Lee (Chair), biographer, academic and reviewer; Simon Armitage, poet and novelist; Candia McWilliam, award-winning novelist; critic Anthony Quinn; and actor Fiona Shaw.

Hermione Lee said at the awards dinner: "I think her mother would be proud. It is clear to those of us who have read Anita Desai that Kiran Desai has learned from her mother's work.

"Both write not just about India but about Indian communities in the world. The remarkable thing about Kiran Desai is that she is aware of her Anglo-Indian inheritance - of Naipaul and Narayan and Rushdie - but she does something pioneering.

"She seems to jump on from those traditions and create something which is absolutely of its own. The book is movingly strong in its humanity and I think that in the end is why it won."

Kiran said in a recent interview: “I was born in India, grew up in India, left when I was fourteen and spent a year in England, and then I moved to the States and I have been studying here ever since.

“I went to high school in Massachusetts and then undergraduate in Vermont--at Bennington--and then to a writing program called Hollins, in Virginia, where I really started writing this book. Then I went on to Columbia but I took two years off to finish the book”.

Reviewing the award-winning book in The New York Times, noted Indian writer Pankaj Mishra wrote: “Although it focuses on the fate of a few powerless individuals, Kiran Desai's extraordinary new novel manages to explore, with intimacy and insight, just about every contemporary international issue: globalization, multiculturalism, economic inequality, fundamentalism and terrorist violence.

“Despite being set in the mid-1980's, it seems the best kind of post-9/11 novel”.

Kiran beat five other writers on the shortlist to win the prize, including the favourite Sarah Waters, for her book, "The Night Watch". Other contenders were: Kate Grenville’s "The Secret River", M J Hyland’s "Carry Me Down", Hisham Matar’s "In the Country of Men" and St Aubyn’s "Edward’s Mother’s Milk".