DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 to Announce Its Winner

After announcing its winners in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India, the DSC Prize 2019 Award Ceremony to take place in Nepal

The DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, which is now in its ninth year, has announced that it would be awarding the DSC Prize 2019 winner at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on the 16th of December, 2019. The felicitation ceremony is planned as the finale event of the Nepal Literature Festival which takes place from 13th to 16th December, 2019. True to its South Asian essence, the peripatetic DSC Prize announces its winner at a different South Asian country every year by rotation. The DSC Prize 2016 winner was announced at the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka whereas the DSC Prize 2017 was awarded at the Dhaka Lit Fest in Bangladesh, and the DSC Prize 2018 was presented at the Tata Steel Kolkata Literary Meet in India. This year the prize is travelling to Nepal where it will celebrate the shortlisted authors and announce the ninth winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 to Announce Its Winner 

The US $25,000 international literary prize, which is focused on South Asian fiction writing, is unique in the sense that it is open to authors of any ethnicity or nationality as long as the writing is about South Asia and its people. By showcasing and rewarding the best writing about the region, the prize has been successful in its vision to raise the awareness of South Asian literature and culture around the world, and bring the best South Asian writing to a larger world-wide audience. It encourages writing in regional languages and translations, and whenever a translated entry has won the award, the prize money has been equally shared between the author and the translator.

Speaking about the partnership, Surina Narula, co-founder of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature said, “We are delighted to partner with the Nepal Literature Festival to announce the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 in the picturesque city of Pokhara in December. Both the prize and the festival share a common vision to promote and highlight South Asian literature, and there is a rich literary landscape in Nepal which I hope will benefit from this partnership. There is a significant amount of writing emanating from and about the South Asian region that needs to be showcased and presented to a larger global readership. The DSC Prize is now in its ninth year and has a tradition of announcing its winner in different South Asian countries by rotation. After announcing the winner in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India over the last three years, we are now happy to announce the DSC Prize 2019 winner at the Nepal Literature Festival”

Commenting on the partnership, Ajit Baral, director of the Nepal Literature Festival said, “It is a great honour for us to host the announcement of the winner of the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, a prestigious literary award that has done much to bring international recognition to South Asian literature over the years. We are excited about the partnership as it syncs well with our aspiration to turn the Nepal Literature Festival into a neutral South Asian forum for writers, artists, public intellectuals and politicians of the region to come together and discuss a cornucopia of issues, including those which might be off-limits in other parts of the region. We are excited too to have got this opportunity to introduce a medley of some of the finest writers writing about South Asia, who would be present at the Festival as part of the announcement, to the Nepali audience.”

Administered by the South Asian Literature Prize & Events Trust, the DSC Prize prides itself on a thorough and transparent judging process and is modelled on global best practices. At the core of the process is the 5 member international jury panel comprising literary luminaries drawn from diverse geographies and expertise, which is solely empowered to adjudicate on the entries received, and their decision is final.

The jury panel is currently evaluating the entries that have come in for the DSC Prize 2019 and would first arrive at a longlist of 12-15 books in end September. Thereafter the jury would announce a shortlist of 5 or 6 books in early November at the London School of Economics in London. The DSC Prize 2019 would culminate with the announcement of the final winner at a special award ceremony at the Nepal Literature Festival in Pokhara on 16th December 2019.

About the Nepal Literature Festival

The only international literature festival in the country, the Nepal Literature Festival was conceived as a forum for fostering pluralities of thoughts and ideas, tolerance, inclusiveness, and literature. True to its founding ethos, it has over the years given space to diverse—often competing—ideas and unheard voices. It has been sensitive to the inclusion of women and marginalized groups, including Dalits, LGBTQI+ and Madhesis. Started in 2011, the Festival aspires to be a neutral venue where writers, artists, filmmakers, singers, and intellectuals from South Asia can come together to discuss varied issues pertinent to the times.

The Festival has seen the participation of writers from South Asia and beyond, namely, Ned Beaman, Mark Tully, Ned Beauman, Mohammed Hanif, Vinod Mehta, Carlo Pizzati, Shashi Tharoor, Shobhaa De, Farah Ghuznavi, Amish Tripathi, Uday Prakash, Ramachandra Guha, Barkha Dutt, Namgay Zam, Aunohita Mojumdar, Tishani Doshi, Carlo Pizzati, Hartosh Bal Singh, Matthieu Aikins, Prajwal Parajuly, Anni Zaidi, etc.

About the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature

The US $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature which was instituted by Surina Narula and Manhad Narula in 2010, is one of the most prestigious international literary awards specifically focused on South Asian writing. It is a unique and coveted prize and is open to authors of any ethnicity or nationality as long as the writing is about South Asia and its people. It also encourages writing in regional languages and translations and the prize money is equally shared between the author and the translator when a translated entry wins. The prize defines South Asia as Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka

The DSC Prize is now in its ninth year, and has been successful in bringing South Asian writing to a larger global audience by rewarding and showcasing the achievements of the authors writing about this region. Past winners of the prize have been H M Naqvi of Pakistan, Shehan Karunatilaka of Sri Lanka, Jeet Thayil and Cyrus Mistry from India, American author of Indian origin Jhumpa Lahiri, Anuradha Roy from India, Anuk Arudpragasam of Sri Lanka, and Jayant Kaikini along with translator Tejaswini Niranjana of India who won the prize last year.

For more information, please contact:

Writu Bose. Email: writu@dscprize.com Contact: +91 - 9830626596 Bashob Dey. Email: bashobdey.dsg@gmail.com Contact: +91 - 9910738105