Salman Rushdie favourite to land "Booker of Bookers"

By Paul Majendie

LONDON (Reuters) - Bookmakers installed Salman Rushdie on Monday as hot favourite to land a one-off "Best of the Booker" award marking the 40th anniversary of one of the literary world's most prestigious prizes.

But Rushdie, best known for his 1988 novel "The Satanic Verses" which outraged many Muslims and prompted death threats against him, faces tough competition from a shortlist of literary heavyweights.

They range from Australian Peter Carey to South Africa's Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer and J.M. Coetzee.

Rushdie is bidding for a unique treble.

In 1981 his novel "Midnight's Children" won the Booker Prize for Fiction. Then in 1993 the magical-realist exploration of Indian history was judged as the best novel to have won the Booker in the award's first quarter of a century.

Bookmakers William Hill are taking no chances, making Rushdie the 6-4 favourite. Next in line at odds of 3-1 is British author Pat Barker for "The Ghost Road", her World War One tale of a shell-shocked officer.

"Salman Rushdie is the obvious favourite as he and his book have become the Sergeant Pepper of the literary world", said William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe.

"He will be the kneejerk vote for people who have not read the book since it was published or haven't read it at all," he added.