London: D B C Pierre, a little-known Australian-Mexican author with a murky past walked off with the Booker Prize for his debut novel "Vernon God Little" edging out the lone Asian contender Monica Ali of Bangladesh for Britain's most coveted literary award.

42-year-old Pierre, who lives in Ireland with a British passport, bagged the prize last night for 'Vernon God Little,' a satire on American low culture inspired by the recent spate of high school massacres.

In one of the shortest judging sessions in the prize's history, less than one hour, four of the five judges gave unqualified backing to the novel.

"Everybody thought that it was the most imaginative, unusual, exciting and extraordinary book for a British person to have written. It is a coruscating black comedy," Prof Carety said.

The prize's administrator, Martyn Goff, said the judges had voted him the winner in record time, with only one of the five voting for another book. He dismissed the suggestion that the Booker's reputation would be tainted by an author with a shady past.

DBC Pierre, which stands for "Dirty But Clean Peter" is the nom de Plume of Peter Finlay, who confessed last weekend to having betrayed friends in his former life as a drug addict and gambler.

He admitted that he had sold a flat in Spain belonging to a mentor, the 75-year-old American artist Robert Lenton, but had pocketed the 30,000 pounds proceeds to pay drug and gambling debts.

PTI