New Delhi: Sixteen
authors, including Atiq Rahimi, Kishwar Desai and Manu Joseph, are
in the race for the DSC Prize for the South Asian Literature 2012,
which seeks to showcase the diverse ethnicity, culture and human
stories from the region.
The long-list, which was unveiled in the capital Wednesday,
comprises original works of fiction in English and those
translated from other languages that are set in south Asia and
feature a south Asian cast.
The prize carries a purse of $50,000 (Rs.23.8 lakh).
The shortlist will be announced Oct 24 in London and the winner
will be announced January 2012.
"We selected the long-list from a list of 52 books. And we were
given barely three months to plod through the books. Each member
of the jury of five recommended three favourites. We read almost
round-the-clock," author Ira Pande, chairperson of the jury, said.
According to Manhad Narula of the prize sponsor DSC Limited, the
jury comprises scholars from US, Britain and South Asia.
It has on board former Booker Prize jury member and Commonwealth
and post-colonial literary scholar Alastair Niven, Pakistan-based
writer, columnist and literary agent Faiza S. Khan, and professor
of English at Dhaka University Fakrul Alam, among others.
"What is striking is that the submissions had a very good mix of
rural and urban life -- a characteristic which distinguishes South
Asia from other regions," Pande told IANS.
"It also had very good mix of genres with translations, a
classical novel and even two detective fictions. Translations are
very important to the growth of South Asia literature because it
increases our visual and literary vocabulary," she added.
The books vying for the prize include "Jimmy, the Terrorist" by
Omair Ahmed, "Bharatipura" by U.R. Ananthamurthy (translated from
Malayalam), "A Street in Srinagar" by Chandrakanta (translated
from Hindi), "Day Scholar" by Siddhartha Chowdhury and "Witness
the Night" by Kishwar Desai.
Also under consideration are "Aftertaste" by Namita Devidayal,
"One Amazing Thing" by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, "Serious Men"
by Manu Joseph, "Monkey Man" by Usha K.R., "Chinaman" by Shehan
Karunatilaka, "The Thing About Thugs" by Tabish Khair, "The Story
that Must Not be Told" by Kavery Nambisan, "The Patience Stone" by
Atiq Rahimi (translated from Pushtu), "The Quarantine Papers" by
Kalpish Ratna and "Buddha's Orphan" by Samrat Upadhyay.
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