LONDON: Kolkata boy Neel Mukherjee is the frontrunner to win the Man Booker prize 2014 to be announced on Tuesday – the first year in the coveted literary prize’s 46-year-history where it has been opened up to writers of any nationality, writing originally in English and published in the UK.

British-Indian writer Mukherjee who was born in Kolkata and was educated in Oxford and Cambridge is expected to win the award and prevent a first American triumph.

Bookies William Hill has him at odds of 5/2 to win the award.

Mukherjee’s latest novel " The Lives of Others " that is set in 1960s Bengal and revolves around a man’s extremist political activism during troubled times has raked in high praise.

Anita Desai called the book “a devastating portrayal of a decadent society and the inevitably violent uprising against it, in the tradition of such politically charged Indian literature as the work of Prem Chand, Manto and Mulk Raj Anand”.

Amitav Ghosh called the work “searing, savage and deeply moving: an unforgettably vivid picture of a time of turmoil”.

The Duchess of Cornwall will attend the Man Booker Prize ceremony again this year, following her inaugural visit in 2013.

She will present the 2014 winner with their trophy once their name has been announced besides a cheque for £50,000.

Odds are stacked against US novelists Joshua Ferris and Karen Joy Fowler who are the among the five authors shortlisted.

If any of the two win, they will become the first American winner of the Man Booker prize.

Previously, the prize was only open to authors from the UK and Commonwealth countries, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe.

Jonathan Taylor, chairman of the Booker Prize Foundation, said, “We are embracing the freedom of English in its versatility, in its vigour, in its vitality and in its glory, wherever it may be. We are abandoning the constraints of geography and national boundaries”.

Deciding on the winner will be a panel chaired by the philosopher AC Grayling. He is joined by the novelist Jonathan Bate, University of East Anglia literature professor Sarah Churchwell, neuroscientist Daniel Glaser, Alastair Niven, a former director of literature at the Arts Council and the British Council, and literary editor Erica Wagner.

Grayling said “As the Man Booker Prize expands its borders, these six exceptional books take the reader on journeys around the world, between the UK, New York, Thailand, Italy, Calcutta and times past, present and future. We had a lengthy and intensive debate to whittle the list down to these six. It is a strong, thought-provoking shortlist which we believe demonstrates the wonderful depth and range of contemporary fiction in English”.

Two authors have previously appeared on the prize shortlist. Howard Jacobson is a former winner of the prize, with The Finkler Question in 2010. Ali Smith has been shortlisted twice before, with Accidental (2005) and Hotel World (2001).