The Smaller Pool
A Delhi family saga, two collections of short stories, a historical novel by an astro-physicist and Amit Chaudhuri’s latest made it to the Crossword Prize’s fiction shortlist, with many likely contenders thrown out of the competition thanks to the new rule of eligibility: Indian passport-holders only. Rana Dasgupta’s Commonwealth Prize-winner Solo and Abraham Verghese’s The Stone Cutters were among the books that weren’t eligible. The shortlist: The Immortals by Amit Chaudhuri, Family Values by Abha Dawesar, If It Is Sweet by Mridula Koshy, Nothing Is Blue by Biman Nath, Venus Crossing: Twelve Stories of Transit by Kalpana Swaminathan.
Fest Drifts
It’s going to be one long party for writers from October to February, judging by the number of litfests coming up. Besides the Hay Festival in Kerala, there’s another ambitious litfest being planned—the Mumbai Litfest—on the same dates (November 12-14). But despite the competition, the leading Jaipur litfest is not worried. Instead, they’ve hiked up the price for a sponsored event from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh.
