New Delhi: Six books including "River of Smoke" by Amitav Ghosh, "Narcopolis" by Jeet Thayil and "The Wandering" by Pakistan-based author Jamil Ahmad, have been shortlisted for the DSC South Asian Literature Prize 2013.
The list, announced in a gala at the Mayfair Hotel in London, it includes six writers -- three Indians, two Pakistani and one from Bangladesh -- besides an American translator for the $50,000 prize. The finalist will be announced at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival January 2013.
The jury of poet K. Satchidanandan, critic Muneeza Shamsie, Elliot Bay author reading programme founder Rick Simonson, Kathmandu Literary Jatra director Suvani Singh and Palestinian Festival of Literature co-founder Eleanor O'Keefe deliberated the list from a selection of 16 books.
Chair of the jury K. Satchidanandan said: "There were 81 entries for the prize this year, from authors and translators across India, Australia, Britain, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, reflecting the importance of South Asia's rapidly expanding book market."...
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11:32 AM, Nov 22, 2012
New Delhi: Jamil Ahmad's The Wandering Falcon has won the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize 2011. As the name suggests, the winner is always a first-time author, and what better start to a literary career than to win an award with your first book? Ahmad, a 78-year-old retired civil servant completed his manuscript of interconnected stories set on the border of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran back in 1974. But it...
06:29 PM, Nov 28, 2011
It took more than three decades for Pakistan's Jamil Ahmad to get published. The first draft of his musings on life in the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan was written in the 1970s -- and then forgotten. In 'The Wandering Falcon', published earlier this year in India and due out in the United States next month, Ahmad gives readers a rare insight into a highly traditional, honour-bound culture in...
12:58 PM, Sep 30, 2011
New Delhi: Amidst all the big ticket literary prizes on the Indian landscape, the one that still has the most hearts racing is the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. After all, as the name suggests, the winner is always a first-time author, and what better start to a literary career than to win an award with your first book? The prize, set up in memory of the talented writer and...
06:40 PM, Sep 09, 2011
CNN-IBN's Amrita Tripathi in conversation with author Jamil Ahmad, about his latest piece of fiction 'The Wandering Falcon'. Amrita Tripathi: You've served in the Frontier Province and in Balochistan -- these are areas the rest of the world sees as largely lawless and ungovernable or terrorist havens. How do you perceive that? How much have things changed? Jamil Ahmad: I can only talk about the period I lived and worked...
08:49 PM, May 06, 2011
There are boundaries between countries and maybe the boundaries exist for a reason, or do they? This question haunted me long after reading the book. There are very few books like these that leave you with lingering thoughts. Thoughts that do not seem to stop. I am often disturbed when I read about territorial issues and added to that communal violence topped with whose land is this? kind of sentiment....
03:12 PM, Apr 13, 2011
