Indian literary giant U.R. Ananthamurthy, who is famous for his seminal work on caste system in Kannada called Samskara, was on Monday night shortlisted for the $50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.
The inaugural DSC Prize was won by Pakistani author H.M. Naqvi for his debut novel Home Boy. The Jnanpith-winner was shortlisted for his novel Bharathipura, which has been translated from original Kannada by Susheela Punitha. Seventy-nine-year-old Ananthamurthy has consistently written about the caste system and the precarious relationship between the cultural values and social change.
The shortlist, which was announced at the world-famous Globe Theatre in London on Monday night, also includes another translated novel, this one by Srinagar-born writer Chandrakanta, whose novel A Street in Srinagar has been translated from Hindi by Manisha Chaudhry. Bengaluru-based Usha K.R has also made the six-book shortlist with her latest novel Monkey-man. She had won the Vodafone Crossword Award for her last novel, A Girl And A River. Indian-born Tabish Khair has made the shortlist for his novel The Thing About Thugs. Indian surgeon-novelist Kavery Nambisan has also been shortlisted for The Story that Must Not Be Told. Sri Lankan Shehan Karunatilaka, who is the only non-Indian in the shortlist, has been nominated for his novel Chinaman.
The shortlist was chosen by the five-member jury, chaired by Indian journalist and writer Ira Pande. The jury includes Dr Alastair Niven, a British expert on Commonwealth literature; newspaper columnist Faiza S. Khan, who works in Bengaluru and Karachi; Dhaka-based professor Dr Fakrul Alam; and Marie Brenner, an author and writer-at-large for Vanity Fair.
The prize, which is open to any author belonging to any part of the globe as long as the work is based on the South Asian region and its people, published in English, including translations into English, will be announced at the Jaipur Literature Festival on January 21 next year.
British tabla sensation Talvin Singh and sarod player Soumik Datta performed for the audience and H.M. Naqvi read extracts from his novel Home Boy.
“The task before the jury was not easy; the main hurdle was how to sift the clever and stylish from the real and true tale. All of us were united in feeling that a novel by any definition must have a strong tale to tell. While there will always be legitimate differences between jury members on individual choices, I think we were fortunate this year in arriving at a broad consensus on what we were looking for,” Ira Pande said after announcing the shortlist.
“I have a twinge of regret, as doubtless other jury members do too, that we could not include some of the terrific novels we had before us but that has been a cross that every jury has had to carry,” she added.