India’s richest literary prize for fiction writing, the JCB Prize has announced this year’s shortlist. Launched in 2018, the prize is aimed at recognizing a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian writer.
Apart from Moustache by S. Hareesh, translated by Jayasree Kalathil, the shortlist includes 2 other debut novels — Deepa Anappara’s Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line, and Dharini Bhaskar’s These, Our Bodies, Possessed by Light . The other two titles in the shortlist are Samit Basu’s dystopian fiction Chosen Spirits and Annie Zaidi’s Prelude to a Riot.
This years jury includes, Tejaswini Niranjana, author and professor; Aruni Kashyap, author; Ramu Ramanathan, playwright and director; and Deepika Sorabjee, head of arts and culture portfolio at the Tata Trusts.
The winner receives a prize money of ₹25 lakhs and ₹1 lakh for each of the shortlisted writers. If the winning work is a translation, the translator gets an additional₹10 lakhs, and a shortlisted translator also gets ₹50,000. The inaugural JCB Prize went to Malayalam writer Benyamin and his English translator Shahnaz Habib for the novel Jasmine Days in 2018. Last year the prize was given to Madhuri Vijay for her novel. The Far Field. The winner will be announced on 7 November.
It’s that time of the year again. Presenting the #JCBPrizeShortlist2020 ! pic.twitter.com/nniQ3aDY5y
— The JCB Prize for Literature (@TheJCBPrize) September 25, 2020
