Indian novelist Indra Sinha is among six authors shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, Britain's most prestigious award for fiction.

Sinha has been selected for his novel Animal's People, which is based on the Bhopal chemical disaster.

Rediff Exclusives! Indra Sinha | Mohsin Hamid

The novel by Sinha, who set up a clinic in 1996 to help survivors of the 1984 Bhopal gas disaster, is a fictionalised story of a victim of the industrial disaster.

Other writers in the contest for the prestigious 50,000-pound literary award are Ian McEwan (On Chesil Beach), Lloyd Jones (Mister Pip) and Nicola Barker (Darkmans), Anne Enright (The Gathering) and Mohsin Hamid (The Reluctant Fundamentalist).

The winner will be named on October 16. Last year's winner was India-born Keran Desai for her book The Inheritance of Loss.