New Delhi, Dec 12 (IANS) With six shortlisted authors from diverse backgrounds in contention, the winner of the peripatetic $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature will be announced on the concluding day of the IME Nepal Literature Festival at Pokhara on December 16. This is in keeping with its tradition of announcing the winner in a different South Asian country every year.
The winner in 2016 was announced at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, in 2017 at the Dhaka Lit Fest in Bangladesh and in 2018 at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet.
The six novels contending for the DSC Prize 2019 are “The Far Field” by debutant author Madhuri Vijay, “Half the Night is Gone” by Amitabha Bagchi, “99 Nights in Logar” by Jamil Jan Kochai, “There’s Gunpowder in the Air” by Manoranjan Byapari (translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha), “The City and the Sea” by Raj Kamal Jha and “The Empty Room” by Sadia Abbas.
All the shortlisted authors barring Madhuri, who has just delivered a baby girl, will be present at the awards ceremony. Madhuri has already won the Rs 25 lakh JCB Prize and has also been shortlisted for the Crossword Book Awards.
The DSC shortlist includes three debut novelists, including two women writers, and a novel that has been translated from Bengali. There are four authors of Indian origin and one author each of Pakistani and Afghan origin. The unique cultural and geographical background of each of the authors makes the shortlist very rich and varied.
The DSC Prize, which was constituted by Surina Narula and Manhad Narula back in 2010, celebrates and showcases the immense talent that is writing about the South Asian region. In line with the increasing globalization of South Asian writing, the prize does not preclude author participation on the basis of nationality, and authors from any country and background are eligible as long as their writing is about South Asia or its people. Apart from original English writing, the DSC Prize encourages regional writing as translations from any South Asian languages into English can be entered for the prize.
“We are delighted to announce the winner of the DSC Prize 2019 at the IME Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara. There is a significant amount of writing emanating from and about the South Asian region that needs to be showcased and presented to a larger global readership. Both the prize and the festival share a common vision to promote and highlight South Asian literature, and there is a rich literary landscape in Nepal which I hope will benefit from this partnership,” Surina Narula said.
The jury has adjudicated on the 90 novels that were entered for the DSC Prize this year, and after announcing a long list of sixteen in New Delhi and a shortlist of six in London, they will meet up in Nepal to announce the eventual winner.
–IANS
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