Inaugural JCB Prize for Literature shortlist announced

Friday, 5 October 2018 Books+Publishing

In India, the shortlist has been announced for the inaugural 2018 JCB Prize for Literature, which aims to ‘foster greater translation between Indian languages’ and promote ‘the diversity and energy of contemporary Indian fiction’, reports the Bookseller.

The shortlisted titles are:

Half the Night is Gone (Amitabha Bagchi, Juggernaut Books)
Jasmine Days (Benyamin, Juggernaut Books), translated from the Malayalam by Shahnaz Habib
Poonachi (Perumal Murugan, Westland Publications), translated from the Tamil by N Kalyan Raman
All the Lives We Never Lived (Anuradha Roy, Hachette)
Latitudes of Longing (Shubhangi Swarup, HarperCollins).

Judges said: ‘In their different ways, these five novels all depict the collision of richly contemplative beings with the rapidly changing outer world.’

Each shortlisted author receives Rs 1 lakh (A$1903) and the winning author receives a further Rs 25 lakhs (A$46,020). If the work is a translation, an additional Rs 5 lakhs (A$9515) is awarded to the translator.

As previously reported by Books+Publishing, the prize is funded by construction manufacturing group JCB, which says it has a ‘desire to create an enduring cultural legacy in India’ based on ‘a substantial and longstanding involvement in the country’s social and economic life’.

Winners will be announced on 3 November.

For more information, see the website.

Category: International news