Novel achievement: Pakistani authors crowd literature long-list

Four Pakistani writers long-listed for the 2013 DSC Prize for South Asian Literature.

A Pakistani ‘Home Boy’ bagged the gold in 2011. Four more are up for it this year.

Four authors, three Pakistani and one of Pakistani-origin, are among 16 who have been long-listed for the 2013 edition of DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, according to a statement on the award’s website.

Jamil Ahmad, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Mohammed Hanif and Pakistani-origin Roopa Farooki are among the authors who made it to the list announced on Tuesday. The list comprises authors and translators from across India, Australia, UK, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While no Pakistani author made it to the long-list in last year’s nominations, and the prize was eventually won by Sri Lanka’s Shehan Karunatilaka for his book ‘Chinaman: The legend of Pradeep Mathew,’ the 2011 prize was bagged by Pakistani author HM Naqvi for his book ‘Home Boy’.

Diversity of South Asian literature

Eighty-one entries were sent for the $50,000 prize this year “from which the jury compiled the long-list of 16 books that they feel represent the diverse cultural landscapes of South Asia through a vibrant literary flourish,” said a statement on the award’s website.

“The [novels] were charmingly diverse in their theme and treatment and well aware of the political, cultural and psychological dimensions of life in the societies and people they were dealing with, making our reading a rich, educative as well as aesthetic experience,” said K Satchidanandan, chair of the jury.

“Each of us prepared our own long-lists, which had many works in common, and where we differed, we arrived at a consensus through mutual consultation,” he added.

The road to gold

The jury will now deliberate on the long-list over the next month and the shortlist for the DSC Prize will be announced on Tuesday, November 20, 2012 at The May Fair Hotel in London. The winner will be subsequently declared at the DSC Jaipur Literature Festival in January 2013.

The prize is awarded for the best work of fiction based on South Asia, published in English, including translations into English.

The stories that made it

Jamil Ahmad

The Wandering Falcon

A gripping novel, The Wandering Falcon begins in Baluchistan in the early 1950s, as a tribal chief’s daughter, married to an impotent man, elopes with her father’s servant

Musharraf Ali Farooqi

Between Clay and Dust

Farooqi’s novel brings together Ustad Ramzi, once the greatest wrestler in the land, and courtesan Gohar Jan, celebrated throughout the country for her beauty and the melodiousness of her singing

Mohammed Hanif

Our Lady of Alice Bhatti

Alice Bhatti, a Christian nurse working in a hospital in Karachi, finds herself being courted by Muslim Teddy Butt, a bodybuilder by day, a policeman by night.

Roopa Farooki

The Flying Man

Maqil Karam, the “flying man” of Roopa Farooki’s fifth novel is a shady entrepreneur, gambler, businessman, political activist, journalist, fornicator, thief, dilettante and sometime playwright from Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 18^th, 2012.