Shortlist for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019

The much-anticipated shortlist for the US $25,000 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 was announced at a special event, which took place at the London School of Economics & Political Science. The short list comprises new and diverse voices and includes four authors of Indian origin and one author each of Pakistani and Afghan origin. It includes 3 debut novelists including 2 women writers, as well as a work of translation of a novel originally written in Bengali. The increasing globalization of South Asian writing is highlighted by the fact that half the shortlisted authors are based outside the region, and their work brings alive the nuances of South Asian life in the same evocative manner as done by their counterparts living in the region.

The six shortlisted novels contending for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature 2019 are:

• Amitabha Bagchi: Half the Night is Gone (Juggernaut Books, India)

• Jamil Jan Kochai: 99 Nights in Logar (Bloomsbury Circus, Bloomsbury, India & UK, and Viking, Penguin

Random House, USA)

• Madhuri Vijay: The Far Field (Grove Press, Grove Atlantic, USA)

• Manoranjan Byapari: There's Gunpowder in the Air (Translated from Bengali by Arunava Sinha, Eka,

Amazon Westland, India)

• Raj Kamal Jha: The City and the Sea (Hamish Hamilton, Penguin Random House, India)

• Sadia Abbas: The Empty Room (Zubaan Publishers, India)