Longlist announced for DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016

•  11 Authors in contention for the coveted prize

The much-awaited longlist for the $ 50,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016 was announced at the Oxford Bookstore by renowned journalist and author Mark Tully, who is the chair of the jury panel for the distinguished prize. 

The longlist comprising 11 books represents a mix of established writers and debut novelists from different backgrounds and geographies. It features authors based in South Asia as well as the authors who explored South Asian life and culture from an outside perspective. The longlist announcement event was attended by publishers, authors and literary enthusiasts who welcomed the selection of the longlist. 

There were over 75 entries for the DSC Prize this year, from which the jury has compiled the longlist of 11 books that they feel represent the best works of fiction related to the South Asian region 

The longlisted entries contending for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2016 are: 

1. Aatish Taseer: The Way Things Were (Picador/PanMacmillan, India)

2. Akhil Sharma: Family Life (Faber & Faber, UK)

3. Amit Chaudhuri: Odysseus Abroad (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin India)

4. Anuradha Roy: Sleeping on Jupiter (Hachette, India)

5. K.R. Meera: Hang Woman (translated by J Devika; Penguin, India)

6. Minoli Salgado: A Little Dust on the Eyes (Peepal Tree Press, UK)

7. Mirza Waheed: The Book of Gold Leaves (Viking/Penguin India)

8. Monica Byrne: The Girl in the Road (Blackfriars/Little, Brown Book Group, UK)

9. Neel Mukherjee: The Lives of Others (Vintage/Penguin Random House, UK)

10. Raj Kamal Jha: She Will Build Him A City (Bloomsbury, India)

11. Sandip Roy: Don’t Let Him Know (Bloomsbury, India) 

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature prides itself on a thorough and transparent judging process and is modelled on global best practices. The five-member international jury panel, which comprises literary luminaries drawn from diverse geographies and expertise, is solely responsible for deciding and arriving at the longlist, the shortlist and the ultimate winner without any external influence and their adjudication is final. 

This year’s international jury panel includes Mark Tully, renowned journalist for over four decades who has commented on a wide range of issues affecting the South Asian region and Chair of the jury panel, Dennis Walder, Emeritus Professor of Literature at the Open University, UK who has authored several articles and books on 19th and 20th century literature, Karen Allman, highly respected book seller and literary coordinator based out of Seattle, USA, Neloufer de Mel, Senior Professor of English at the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka who has written extensively on society, culture and feminism, and Syed Manzoorul Islam, celebrated Bangladeshi writer, translator, critic and academic. 

The jury will now deliberate on the longlist over the next month and the shortlist for the DSC Prize 2016 will be announced on 26th November at the London School of Economics & Political Science (LSE) in London. 

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, by Cyrus Mistry for Chronicle of a Corpse Bearer and by Jhumpa Lahiri for The Lowland. Each of these winners has gone on to be published internationally and their work has reached a larger global audience which has been one of the central visions of the DSC prize.