DSC Prize winner to be awarded at Nepal Literature Festival
The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which is now in its ninth year, has recently announced that it would be felicitating the DSC Prize 2019 winner at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on December 16, 2019. The felicitation ceremony is planned as the finale event of the Nepal Literature Festival which takes place from December, 13 – 16, 2019.
True to its South Asian essence, the peripatetic DSC Prize announces its winner at a different South Asian country every year by rotation. The DSC Prize 2016 winner was announced at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka, whereas the DSC Prize 2017 was awarded at the Dhaka Lit Fest in Bangladesh, and the DSC Prize 2018 was presented at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet in India.
This year, the prize is travelling to Nepal, where it will celebrate the short listed authors and announce the ninth winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. The US $25,000 international literary prize, which is focused on South Asian fiction writing, is unique in the sense that it is open to authors of any ethnicity or nationality as long as the writing is about South Asia and its people.
By showcasing and rewarding the best writing about the region, the prize has been successful in its vision to raise the awareness of South Asian literature and culture around the world, and bring the best South Asian writing to a larger worldwide audience. It encourages writing in regional languages and translations, and whenever a translated entry has won the award, the prize money has been equally shared between the author and the translator.
Speaking about the partnership, Surina Narula, co-founder of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature said, "We are delighted to partner with the Nepal Literature Festival to announce the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 in the picturesque city of Pokhara in December. 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."
Commenting on the partnership, Ajit Baral, Director of the Nepal Literature Festival said, "It is a great honour for us to host the announcement of the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, a prestigious literary award that has done much to bring international recognition to South Asian literature over the years. We are excited too to have got this opportunity to introduce a medley of some of the finest writers writing about South Asia, who would be present at the Festival as part of the announcement, to the Nepali audience."
Administered by the South Asian Literature Prize & Events Trust, the DSC Prize prides itself on a thorough and transparent judging process and is modelled on global best practices. At the core of the process is the 5 member international jury panel comprising literary luminaries drawn from diverse geographies and expertise, which is solely empowered to adjudicate on the entries received, and their decision is final. The jury panel is currently evaluating the entries that have come in for the DSC Prize 2019 and would first arrive at a long list of 12-15 books by the end of September. Thereafter, the jury would announce a shortlist of 5 or 6 books in early November at the LSE, London.
