Bibliofile

To Build A Litprize

The moneybags of the Jaipur litfest—the construction company dsc—has ensured that its name will forever be associated with the litfest’s success by starting a literary prize on a scale we have never seen before in this part of the world. The award, worth $50,000, will be given at next year’s edition of the litfest for the year’s best novel. The advisory panel of five is still working out the details but here’s why everyone’s going to watch out for this prize: it promises to be transparent, with an elected, independent jury; it’s open to all novelists, South Asian as well as international (provided the theme is South Asian), writing in English or translated into English. Submissions—only through publishers—close on March 31.

Street Of Success

Why did Shankar’s Bengali bestseller Chowringhee become the toast of literary London, 47 years after it was first published? The trick, says his UK publisher, Ravi Mirchandani of Atlantic Books, “was to treat him as a first novelist”. To impress reviewers, Mirchandani says he decided on a hardback edition. It worked: the 75-year-old popular Bengali writer became the best-known debut novelist from India at the London Book Fair last year.

Writers In The Sun

The number of literary couples who are choosing to lead their writing lives in Goa! There’s Amitav Ghosh and wife Deborah Baker, Sudhir and Katharina Kakar, Meghnad and Kishwar Desai, and now Nobel Prize-winner Orhan Pamuk and Booker-winner Kiran Desai as well. After the Bloomsbury group, is it the Goa Group of writers now?