Indian authors dominate DSC Literature Prize longlist

Indian and India-origin writers dominated the longlist of the $50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016 with the likes of Amit Chaudhuri and Neel Mukherjee figuring in it.

The longlist of 11 books was announced by noted journalist-author Mark Tully, who is the chair of the jury for the prize, on Friday.

The list represents a mix of established writers and debut novelists from different backgrounds and geographies and features authors based in South Asia as well as those who explored South Asian life and culture from an outside perspective.

There were over 75 entries this year, from which the jury has compiled the long-list of 11 books that they felt represent the best works of fiction related to the South Asian region.

The long-listed entries are Chaudhuri’s ‘Odysseus Abroad’, Neel Mukherjee’s ‘The Lives of Others’, Aatish Taseer’s ‘The Way Things Were’, ‘Family Life’ by Akhil Sharma, Anuradha Roy’s ‘Sleeping on Jupiter’; ‘Hang Woman’ by KR Meera, Minoli Salgado’s ‘A Little Dust on the Eyes’, Mirza Waheed’s ‘The Book of Gold Leaves’, Monica Byrne’s ‘The Girl in the Road’; ‘She Will Build Him A City’ by Raj Kamal Jha; and Sandip Roy’s ‘Don’t Let Him Know’.

Besides Tully, the five-member international jury has as it members Dennis Walder, Emeritus Professor of Literature at the Open University, UK; Karen Allman, book seller and literary coordinator based in the US; Neloufer de Mel, Senior Professor of English at the University of Colombo; and Syed Manzoorul Islam, Bangladeshi writer, translator and critic.