Perumal Murugan and Sharanya Manivannan were among the authors who made it to the longlist for the JCB Prize for Literature, a literary prize given out annually. A total of 11 novels have made it to the longlist, two of which are translations.
The long list:
Perumal Murugan’s Trial by Silence and Lonely Harvest have been considered as one novel. They were published simultaneously, and are both sequels to One Part Woman, and have two different scenarios.
The five-member 2019 jury comprised of author and critic Anjum Hasan, authors KR Meera and Parvati Sharma, and economist and former Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian. Filmmaker and environmentalist Pradip Krishen was the jury's Chair.
The Rs 25-lakh prize, presented each year to a distinguished work of fiction by an Indian author selected by the jury, aims to create greater visibility for contemporary Indian writing. It also has a particular focus on translation.
The jury, appointed by Literary Director Rana Dasgupta, is responsible for selecting the longlist of 10, the shortlist of five, and the winner. Each shortlisted author receives Rs 1 lakh. The winning author receives a further Rs 25 lakh. An additional Rs 5 lakh is awarded to the translator if the winning work is a translation.
The shortlist for the prize will be announced next month, and the final announcement will be on November 2.
Author Benyamin's novel Jasmine Days translated from Malayalam by Shahnaz Habib, had bagged the inaugural edition of the award in 2018. The prize is funded by JCB, a global manufacturer of earthmoving and construction equipment, and administered by the JCB Literature Foundation.
With IANS inputs