DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2011

For the first time award was given at the Jaipur Literature Festival, DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. In January 2011, this US $ 50,000 award was conferred upon H.M. Naqvi for his novel ‘Home Boy’, published by Harper Collins India. The Chairperson of the Jury, Nilanjana S. Roy declared that while finalizing the shortlist when all the members of the jury argued about the merits of all the contenders they rediscovered the joys of reading. She said, “As we finalised our shortlist, the criteria that was uppermost in our minds was DSC’s mandate to look for the best and the most interesting examples of the contemporary novel set in, or about, South Asia.”

The following novels were shortlisted for the prize:
• Amit Chaudhuri’s The Immortals (Picador India)
• Tania James’ ‘Atlas of Unknowns (Pocket Books)
• Musharraf Ali Farooqi’s ‘The Story of a Widow (Picador India)
• Manju Kapur’s ‘The Immigrant’ (Faber & Faber)
• Neel Mukherjee’s ‘A Life Apart’ (Constable & Robinson)
• H.M. Naqvi’s ‘Home Boy’ (Harper Collins India)

Apart from those mentioned above the other novels included in the longlist in the previous round were:
• Upamanyu Chatterjee’s ‘Way to Go’ (Penguin)
• Chandrahas Choudhury’s ‘Arzee the Dwarf’ (Harper Collins)
• Ru Freeman’s ‘A Disobedient Girl’ (Penguin/Viking)
• Anjum Hassan’s ‘Neti Neti’ (IndiaInk/Roli Books)
• Daniyal Mueenuddin’s ‘In Other Rooms, Other Wonders’ (Bloomsbury)
• Salma’s ‘The Hour Past Midnight’ (Zubaan, translated by Lakshmi Holmstrom)
• Sankar’s ‘The Middleman’ (Penguin, translated by Arunava Sinha)
• Ali Sethi’s ‘The Wish Maker’ (Penguin)
• Jaspreet Singh’s ‘Chef’ (Bloomsbury)
• Aatish Taseer’s ‘The Temple Goers’ (Penguin/Viking)