DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 to announce winner at Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara

• After announcing its winners in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, the DSC Prize 2019 Award Ceremony to take place in Nepal

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which is now in its ninth year, has announced that it would be awarding the DSC Prize 2019 winner at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on 16 December. 

The felicitation ceremony is planned as the finale event of the Nepal Literature Festival which takes place from 13 to 16 December. 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 shortlisted authors and announce the ninth winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

The $ 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 world-wide 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, DSC Prize for South Asian Literature co-founder Surina Narula 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. 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. The DSC Prize is now in its ninth year and has a tradition of announcing its winner in different South Asian countries by rotation. After announcing the winner in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India over the last three years, we are now happy to announce the DSC Prize 2019 winner at the Nepal Literature Festival.”

Commenting on the partnership, Nepal Literature Festival Director Ajit Baral 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 about the partnership as it syncs well with our aspiration to turn the Nepal Literature Festival into a neutral South Asian forum for writers, artists, public intellectuals and politicians of the region to come together and discuss a cornucopia of issues, including those which might be off-limits in other parts of the region. 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 and 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 five-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 in end-September. Thereafter the jury would announce a shortlist of five or six books in early November at the London School of Economics in London. The DSC Prize 2019 would culminate with the announcement of the final winner at a special award ceremony at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on 16 December.