STOCKHOLM — Can Xue, the Chinese avant-garde novelist whose experimental fiction has made her a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, has emerged as the bookmakers’ favorite to win this year’s award, according to odds offered by the British betting company Ladbrokes. Can Xue is listed at 10/1, ahead of the Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami at 14/1. Australian writer Gerald Murnane and the American novelist Thomas Pynchon are among the other writers near the top of the market.

JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — A man was critically injured on Saturday night when he was struck by a train near his home in the Inuvil-Karaikal area of Jaffna, the police said. According to preliminary police information, the man was lying on the railway track and listening to music on headphones at the time. The train severed both of his legs and one arm. He was taken to the emergency treatment unit at Jaffna Teaching Hospital, where he remained in critical condition, according to the police. The Chun

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka: Sri Lankan police on Saturday arrested Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thero, the general secretary of the Buddhist nationalist group Bodu Bala Sena, at a forest monastery in the Thiniyawala area of Kalutara District. Two courts issued warrants for his arrest this week after he failed to appear. The Colombo Crimes Division made the arrest on an outstanding court warrant, the police media spokesperson said. The monk had not been seen in public for most of the past weeks. After the