Both Rushdie and Naipaul have Booker wins to their credit: Naipaul's came in 1971, for In a Free State. Rushdie's Midnight's Children won twice--in 1981 and again in 1994, the second time as the best novel in the prize's first 25 years.

Subcontinental writers like Anita Desai and Vikram Seth are perennial potentials for Booker glory.