Adiga had been given odds of 7/1 before the ceremony by bookmakers William Hill. Irish writer Barry had been tipped to take the prize at 7/4. The bookmakers' favourite has not won since Yann Martel in 2002.
Adiga pipped aside Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies, another Indian in the shortlist to bag the 50,000 pounds prize ($87,000), which goes to the best work of fiction by an author from the Commonwealth.
Adiga was born on October 23, 1974 and raised partly in Australia. He studied at Columbia and Oxford Universities and is a former correspondent for TIME magazine in India.
His articles have appeared in publications such as the Financial Times, Independent and Sunday Times.
Image: Indian author Aravind Adiga (L), Irish author Sebastian Barry (2nd L), Indian author Amitav Ghosh (3rd L), English author Linda Grant (3rd R), English author Philip Hensher (2nd R) and Australian author Steve Toltz (R) pose for pictures with their nominated books.
Photograph: Leon Neal/AFP/Getty Images
Buy Amitav Ghosh's Sea of Poppies on rediff.com
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