Longlist announced for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015

The longlist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 was announced at the Goethe-Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi by leading Indian writer Keki N Daruwalla, who is chairing the jury panel for the coveted prize. The longlist comprising ten books includes a good mix of established writers and debut novelists and spans authors from different backgrounds and geographies. It features authors originating from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, some of whom are now based in USA, UK and Canada. The function was well attended by publishers, authors and literary enthusiasts.

The DSC Prize is now in its fifth year and over the last five years it has successfully celebrated and rewarded the best talent writing about the South Asian region and presented it to a global audience. There were over 75 entries for the coveted US $50,000 prize this year.

The announcement was preceded by a vivid theatrical reading performance by the Tadpole Repertory, comprising seasoned theatre artists and voracious readers, Krittika Bhattacharjee and Momo Ghosh. The performance brought to life, excerpts from Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer by Cyrus Mistry, which had won the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature last year.

The longlist…

The longlisted entries contending for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2015 are: Bilal Tanweer: The Scatter Here is Too Great (Vintage Books/Random House, India); Jaspreet Singh: Helium (Bloomsbury, India); Jhumpa Lahiri: The Lowland (Vintage Books/Random House, India); Kamila Shamsie: A God in Every Stone (Bloomsbury, India); Khaled Hosseini: And the Mountains Echoed (Bloomsbury, India); Meena Kandasamy: The Gypsy Goddess (Fourth Estate/Harper Collins, India); Omar Shahid Hamid: The Prisoner (Pan Books/Pan Macmillan, India); Romesh Gunesekera: Noontide Toll (Hamish Hamilton/Penguin, India); Rukmini Bhaya Nair: Mad Girl’s Love Song (Harper Collins, India); and Shamsur Rahman Faruqi: The Mirror of Beauty (Penguin Books, India).

The shortlist for the DSC Prize will be announced at The London School of Economics in London (November 27, 2014) while the winner will be subsequently declared at the Zee Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2015.

Earlier winners…

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature has previously been won by HM Naqvi for Home Boy, by Shehan Karunatilaka for Chinaman: The Legend of Pradeep Mathew by Jeet Thayil for Narcopolis and by Cyrus Mistry for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer.