Carey wins Booker award

LONDON, England -- Australian novelist Peter Carey has won the prestigious Booker Prize for his novel about the infamous gangster Ned Kelly.

It is the second time in 13 years the 58-year-old has won the award, regarded as the UK's top literary fictional prize. The first was for his novel Oscar And Lucinda, which was later made into a film staring Ralph Fiennes.

He becomes only the second writer to win the Booker Prize twice in its 33 year history -- the other being South Africa's J.M. Coetzee in 1983 and 1999.

Carey, who has written six novels, was also shortlisted for the prize in 1985 for his epic, Illywhacker.

True History Of The Kelly Gang had been this year's bookies' favourite to walk off with the £21,000 first prize. Despite his past win Carey said he was surprised at taking the award again.

"I really thought I was beyond it, if I won it I would be fine, and if I didn't win it I would be fine," he said.

"But I'm astonished to find I'm bursting with adrenaline and feeling like it never happened and here I am feeling like I've been run over by a truck. The truth is I'm delighted."

His winning work is a fictional account of Australia's anti-hero Ned Kelly, portraying him as orphan, horse thief, bank robber, police killer and finally the nation's answer to Robin Hood.

The writer thanked his wife Alison whom he said persuaded him to write the winning book when he was "foolishly trying to write a novel about New York which I love but know nothing about really".

New York is his adopted home, and he urged guests at the London ceremony on Wednesday to make a trip to the city, which was in desperate need of visitors, he said.

He wife had been shopping in the World Trade Center when suicide plan hijackers flew their planes into the twin towers on September 11.

Tory education secretary Lord Baker said: "The judges chose Peter Carey's True History Of The Kelly Gang because it is a magnificent story of the early settler days in Australia, expressed through the unforgettable voice of a vilified man who came to stand for more than he knew."

Carey admitted that the real Ned Kelly may not recognise the character he created for his book.

"I think Ned Kelly would say `this is not me.' I made up a man's life and of course how could I possibly know what his life was like."

Also shortlisted this year were Ian McEwan's Atonement, Oxygen by Andrew Miller, number9dream by David Mitchell, Hotel World by Ali Smith and The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert.